Is There Still
by Chaos Dragon
Summary: Some say that death is the next great adventure. But Danny Fenton thinks that it’s nothing but a nightmare that he can’t escape from, no matter what he tries. DxS TxJ
1. Chapter 1

Is There Still

1

"Oh hell."

Danny Fenton cursed and pumped his legs, breaking into an uneven sprint as he headed for the doors of Caper High as the late bell shrilled through the crisp morning air. His book bag was heavy against his side, thumping him with every step as he struggled to swing it around and over his other arm even as he raced up the stairs and into the now empty halls. His sneakers thudded and he cursed again as he pushed through a set of double doors and into a stairwell, taking each two at a time and wishing for once that he dared just use his ghost powers to fly up and shave as much time off of the tardy he knew he was going to get.

It'd be a detention for sure, but at least not with Lancer. Danny sighed in relief as he finally saw the closed door to his first period and paused in front of it, huffing and trying to catch his breath before grabbing the knob and turning it, pulling the door open quickly and wincing as it squeaked. He ducked through, head down as he made his way to the back of the room and the two empty chairs that usually were home to his back pack and his rear end.

"Sorry, Mrs. Schultz," he murmured as he dug in his bag and pulled out his algebra book, frowning at the half finished homework sticking out from between the pages.

When the anticipated detention never came Danny glanced up at his teacher and finally noticed the rest of the class staring at him, along with her. Okay, so he was late. He knew that. Everyone else knew that. But why were they so surprised? Because that was as plain as day on their faces, and Danny slouched further into his seat as he glanced around and then just flipped his book open to the page on the board.

The class passed slowly, much more slowly than usual as Danny still tried to ignore the stares shot his way, the way Mrs. Schultz ran a hand over her short russet hair before standing up and teaching. If she cleared her throat nervously every time she looked his way, there really was no explanation for it, and Danny wished he could just slip through the floor and disappear long before he was lost in algebra.

The really sad thing was that he could. He actually could, but he didn't dare.

The whispers made it that much more difficult, and Danny finally gave up trying to make sense of 2x+15y(3x/4)/164y-7x(4/5x) as he let his head drop to the desk with a quiet thump. If anyone stared at least now he didn't have to see it, and given the way his teacher was acting he really, really didn't think she was going to tell him to pay attention. As a matter of fact, she was acting like she wasn't even sure what he was doing there.

With his head still flat against the desk Danny pinched his thigh, wincing as he realized that it wasn't a dream like he was beginning to hope. The whispers continued, the shifting of bodies, and Danny really wished that he at least shared the class with one of his two best friends. But Tucker had opted to go with trigonometry and Sam had already made her math requirements fro graduation by taking algebra and trigonometry both during summer school.

No, he was alone with the insanity his presence had inspired this morning, and there was no explanation.

His eyes wandered to the clock above the board at the front of the room, and he frowned as Mrs. Schultz winced and slid her gaze from him quickly. To hell with it, he decided. The bell was ringing in less than two minutes. His book found its way back into his bag and he shoved spare paper and his pencil without a care, his homework still not finished, but crushed in his hand as he popped up as the bell rang.

Nobody else moved and Danny shrugged as he threaded his way to Mrs. Schultz's desk and dropped his unfinished homework into the basket on her desk. "I didn't finish it," he muttered. "Sorry." And without a backwards glance he was out the door and diving into the throng in the halls.

It wasn't much better there, but at least he could try and blend in and ignore the occasional gasp or the way some people veered away from him like he had the plague. And when he made it to his second period he was relieved to find a still empty classroom. _Thank god,_ he thought as he hurried to the back of the room and the trio of desks that had been his, Tucker's and Sam's for as long as they had shared homeroom at Casper. Which had been since freshman year.

He collapsed into the chair with a sigh as he dropped his bag on top of the desk, scrunching down behind it with a sigh. This was his third year sitting in this seat, he was a junior now and he'd been hiding in the same spot in homeroom since he'd started high school. It was almost depressing, he realized as he heard footsteps from the front of the room. Several, and he popped his head up to see if Sam or Tucker had made it to homeroom that quickly.

No such luck, but he hadn't expected it. They rarely made it until the bell was just ringing, both of them sharing a first period history class that was practically on the other side of the school, not to mention stopping at their lockers to change books. Or, in Tucker's case, to drop off the tome that was their shared history book. Sam had bribed him the third day of school to let her share his so she didn't have to carry hers.

Tucker was making out like a bandit.

No, the footsteps certainly weren't Sam or Tucker. In fact it was Dash with his annoying little friends dragged along. Danny smirked as he saw Paulina following Dash. She had joined the annoying little group label sometime in the middle of his sophomore year when she had tried to set him up to be caught cheating on the pre-SAT.

He'd been really lucky that Lancer had been administering the test, and that he'd already had Danny confess to wanting to cheat and then having not done it. It had given Danny the benefit of the doubt and cast suspicion on Paulina that ultimately led to her confession. And she'd done it because of Sam, according to her. But then, it fit with what she'd done the night he'd taken her to that dance in freshman year.

It had taken him almost eight months to get Sam to just tell him what Paulina had said to her when she followed her into the bathroom and managed to get the amulet of Eragon. He'd pointed out that it'd been something that she had even wanted to try and steal him from Sam. And finally realized what a, and he chuckled loudly as he thought it, shallow little wench she was.

The chuckle had heads whipping to the back of the room, most of the A-List and now his homeroom teacher. And again the surprise, which had Danny surprised all on his own.

"I _am_ in this class," he said pointedly as the surprise began morphing into shock, and then almost fear from everyone.

It only got worse as more people filed in, and Danny frowned as he realized that people were deliberately trying not to sit near him. _What, do I actually have the plague?_ He thought in annoyance. Maybe they were just surprised that he was on time, or in class. He was usually late, or not even there. But come on, was Danny Fenton actually showing up to class such a phenomenon that it caused mass hysteria and terror?

Except it did, he realized as he searched his classmates' faces, the teacher, Mr. Moody's face. They really were scared of him, but for nothing that Danny could figure out. Maybe his parents had done something before he'd managed to get to school, blown something up. Torn a ghost apart molecule by molecule in front of everyone.

Maybe witnessing that could make everyone scared of him.

But Danny was beginning to think it wasn't that, and then the bell rang making him jump. There was a long silence after that and then another set of footsteps. Slow and dragging and echoing as he realized it was two pairs, and he stood up uncertainly as Sam and Tucker rounded the door of the classroom and slipped in quietly, not even trying to apologize for being late.

And Mr. Moody said _nothing_.

Something was wrong, Danny finally understood, and his stomach clenched and rolled in his belly with sudden fear induced nausea. Something was really wrong, and he must be the only one who didn't know it. Sam and Tucker… They looked horrible, like they'd been to hell and back. Or something even worse.

Tucker was pale, even with his dark skin, and his eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot. He looked like he'd worn the same clothes for days on end, they were that rumpled and wrinkled, and he didn't even have his beret on. Danny blinked. Even Tucker's PDA wasn't in evidence. There wasn't even a telltale bulge in his pocket where it normally resided.

Sam looked worse, if that was possible. It was probably because she was already so pale, and had a propensity to black. She was paler than she usually was, which was saying a lot, and her eyes mirrored Tucker's, shot red and swollen. Like she'd been crying for hours, days on end. Her clothes were straight black, which was odd, and for Sam to be so unkempt as the wrinkles showed was unusual. She might not have been a fashion plate, but Sam did care about her appearance inasmuch as it was how she presented herself to the world: Goth, and proud of it.

"Guys?" he said softly as they plodded quietly and unseeing to empty chairs nowhere near him. _Like they were avoiding where they normally sat._

Two pairs of eyes whipped towards him, one jade green, the other a piercing violet, and two mouths dropped open in shocked gasps. It hurt Danny, cut him to the core to read the motions that flickered across both of his best friend's faces in the moments they stared. Sorrow, happiness, those were fine. But fear? That sudden flickering of pain and maybe even anger?

No, those weren't something he had expected to see, and he hesitated to even ask them what was wrong. Had he done something? Maybe he should be begging to fix it. He was about to when he was thrown of balance by Sam racing for him and flinging her arms tight around his neck as the morning announcements began to play across the PA.

Danny ignored Lancer's tired monotonous voice as Sam sobbed against his neck, and he shot Tucker a confused glance as he stroked Sam's back. He was more than a little afraid, and the feeling built as Tucker joined suit, following Sam and throwing an arm around Danny's other shoulder, the one that Sam hadn't claimed for her own shoulder to cry on, and Tucker clapped a hand to his back, thumping it soundly enough that Danny winced.

"What's wrong?" he finally asked, and Tucker only shook his head as the announcements stopped for a moment.

"As you all know, one our fellow student's was buried yesterday morning," Lancer said and Danny glanced up at the speaker hanging on the wall curiously.

The silence was broken by a faintly, pained, "Oh, god," and Sam wrenched herself away from Danny, and wrapped an arm around Tucker as she stared at Danny, tears streaming down her face.

It only got worse as Danny realized Tucker was nearly in tears himself. He was desperately trying to surprises them, but Danny could see them gathering at the corners of his eyes, and then beginning to slide down dark cheeks in glistening trails as Sam finally turned her face away from Danny, her hands coming up to cover her face as she collapsed against Tucker, her entire body shaking.

The PA system suddenly barked to life, and Danny frowned as he realized that MR. Lancer was sniffling as he started talking again. "So let's all observe a moment of silence for Danny Fenton, and keep him in our thoughts as we go about our lives."

"What?"

It was a whisper. A choked, painful, terrifying whisper that was torn from Danny's throat as he looked frantically around the room. The way people were looking at him, the way he frightened them, the way they had avoided him like the… like the ghost he was. Danny looked down and let out a strangled gasp at what he saw. His eyes shot back up to Sam and Tucker, both of them now crying openly, no attempts at trying to hide it, and Sam nodding yes even as Danny shook his head no.

"We buried you yesterday, Danny," she whispered as she reached out to him again.

As she reached out to his _gloved_ hand.

Danny closed his eyes as her fingers threaded through his, and he let his head drop down, feeling her hot hands against his cheek. His cold cheek, he realized. His cold, ghostly cheek. "I don't understand," he whispered.

And he didn't. If he died, wouldn't he be Fenton? But there he was in his familiar black hazmat, the emblem Sam had designed for him so long ago emblazoned across his chest, and he flinched back as he felt her lips against his cheek, and the slim fingers that found his other hand and slipped something into them. His hand fisted involuntarily around whatever it was, and Sam stepped back, rubbing her face with her hands as she nodded at him to look at his hand.

A mirror.

She'd given him a mirror, and he looked back at her, wondering if his eyes were glowing now that he was all ghost. She nodded again, and Tucker slipped an arm around her as Danny raised the mirror to his face. _His_ face. Danny Fenton. Not Danny Phantom.

He was in his hazmat, yes. But he was still Fenton. Black hair, blue eyes, _Fenton_.

"I don't understand," he whispered again, and glanced around the still quiet room, wondering if anyone else did. Maybe if they did they could explain it to him.

The mirror slipped from numb fingers and shattered across the floor as Danny stumbled back into a desk, then through it without a thought. "Oh god," he choked out. His classmates, still staring at him, Sam and Tucker, still crying.

The moment of silence for Danny Fenton still quiet.

"Oh god," he whispered again. And he closed his eyes and shot up through the ceiling, seeking the escape of anywhere but Casper High.


	2. Chapter 2

Is There Still

2

The ground was still disturbed. It had really only been the day before—the sod had obviously only just been laid on top of the dirt. The dirt that covered his coffin. That covered him. To the left of the grave was a space of flattened grass that Danny knew must have been where the chairs had been. There wasn't much flattened. Enough maybe for his parents, Jazz. Sam and Tucker of course. Danny thought that maybe he should have been hurt by the lack of attendance, until he looked to the right and saw more flattened grass.

Enough for a lot of people. And still he didn't care.

There were flowers, all colors heaped around the headstone. He'd only been to one funeral that he could remember, and the headstone hadn't been there that quickly. But he had one. A silvery gray stone with veins of white splitting it every so often. It was nice, he supposed. At least it looked good enough to mark his final resting place.

_Daniel Andrew Fenton_

_July 19 1990 – September 1 2006_

_Beloved Son_

It still didn't seem real, and Danny crouched down to trace a gloved finger along the craved letters of his name, of his birthday. He hesitated before touching the letters and numbers of the day he died, like touching them would make it more real. But he closed his eyes and ran careful fingers along it, wondering how it could have happened.

He had no memory of it. But then, he didn't actually remember much of anything right then. How he'd gotten to school, where he'd been before that. How had he died? Danny closed his eyes on the confusion, rubbing them with his hands and dropping down to the ground and pulling his knees up to his chest to wrap his arms around his legs and bury his face against them.

He was scared. He was more than scared. Was it so bad that even as a full ghost he couldn't remember what happened? Wouldn't remember what happened? Maybe it was supposed to be like this. Maybe it took time to remember. Danny bit his lips against the sudden heat of tears, blinking rapidly as he tried to stop them. it was useless, he realized as the first few seared scaling hot trails down his icy cheeks.

It was no use at all, because he knew that the ghosts he'd always fought knew how they had died, knew exactly when they became a ghost what had happened. It must have been bad. Really bad.

"It was Plasmius."

Danny tensed, but stayed where he was as Sam came up alongside him and dropped down next to him, close enough for him to close his eyes as he drank in the warmth of her mortal body even while she shivered at the cold he radiated. He didn't open them as he heard Tucker drop down on the other side, and kept them closed, crying silent tears as two sets of arms encircled him from either side.

"What happened?" he asked softly. "If Plasmius did it, what happened?"

"You don't remember?" Tucker sat back up, pulling away enough that he could look at Danny, preserving any sense of male dignity that might be left. There wasn't much, but he was content to let Sam cling to Danny.

Danny shook his head as he wrapped an arm around Sam, who only closed her eyes as she let her head lie against his shoulder. "I don't even remember how I got to school," he admitted as he scrubbed his cheeks with a hand.

"Your dad built something new. It was designed to neutralize intangibility in ghosts. I think Vlad was planning on using it against you sometime."

"He did," Sam said softly. "He used it on you."

Danny brushed his cheek against Sam's hair, wondering what would spur her to tell him that and nothing else. She wasn't going to, he knew. Not with the note of finality that hung in the air between them, so he turned his vivid blue gaze at Tucker, letting his eyes make the plea for him. And when Tucker said nothing Danny sighed and closed his eyes.

"Losing my intangibility wouldn't kill me," he said slowly. "What else happened?"

Sam's shoulders shook and Danny tossed a wild glance at Tucker. He knew that actually asking would be bad, but he hadn't realized that it would make Sam suddenly hysterical. The other boy just closed his eyes for a long moment, and then pulled the shaking girl from Danny's arms, tucking her securely under his own and shaking his head at Danny when he started to follow them.

"I'll be back, Danny."

Danny could only nod his assent and watch his two best friends walk away. More like Tucker drag Sam, but she wasn't in any shape to stop him. She was barely able to keep herself upright. Danny blinked rapidly against the sudden heat of tears, firmly suppressing them as he turned back to his grave and tombstone. It was so weird to just think it.

Let alone say it.

"I'm dead." The words seemed to echo ominously through the silent cemetery, and Danny shuddered as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm dead," he said again, and his voice broke this time.

It was the first time he had said it, the first time he had admitted that his life—afterlife—was officially a nightmare. With a strangled sob Danny fell to his knees, his hands hard on the ground, fingers digging into the dirt, clenching like claws. He let his forehead lie still against the grass, his tears mingling into mud as he cried, screamed, cursed the unfairness of it all.

"What did I do to deserve this?" he screamed up to the sky. He collapsed back down into himself, huddled in against his legs. "I tried, I really tried. I didn't deserve to die," he choked out as blurry eyes found his name where it was etched into stone. "I didn't deserve to die."

He shuddered back at a hand on his shoulders, staring blindly up at Tucker where he was bent over him, his face twisted into a mask of worry. "Danny," Tucker said softly.

"What did I do wrong, Tuck?" Danny asked.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Tucker said honestly. "You did what was right."

"Then why?" he asked helplessly.

Tucker sighed and dropped down to the ground next to Danny. "Because Vlad is more ruthless than you will ever be." Tucker breathed in deeply, letting the air stream out as he gathered his thoughts. "You died because you were the good guy."

"Good's supposed to win," Danny whispered.

Tucker shrugged. "This was just a single battle in the war. Good versus evil isn't something that's going to just end. It's been here forever, it'll _be_ here forever."

Danny didn't say anything for a long time while he thought about it. He knew that Tucker was right. So when he finally did speak he did it with an even voice, burying as much of the grief, the pain and fear, any and all emotion as he could. "How's Sam?"

"She's not taking it very well, Danny."

"But she'll be alright?" Danny asked, shooting a worried ocean blue stare at Tucker.

He only shrugged. "It was hard for her today. You just showing up like that… Mixed blessings, dude. She's hurting."

Danny looked away rubbing a hand over his face. "And you?"

"I'm dealing," was all Tucker said. "It's harder for her. She's the one who found you."

Danny could only blink at Tucker for a minute. "You weren't there?"

Tucker shook his head. "I was in detention."

"Poor Sam," Danny said, not even coming close to expressing how awful he felt as he said that.

Tucker nodded. "Plasmius hit you with his new toy, you couldn't go intangible anymore. She said that he used one of the weapons he'd given Valerie. That it seared a hole clean through you."

Danny looked down at his chest, touched it and ran a hand across the material of his hazmat. Solid. At least, as solid as a ghost could be, which was solid enough for him to touch and know that there was nothing missing underneath it. "Did it… Did I suffer?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know," Tucker said honestly. "Sam refuses to talk about it. And no one else knows exactly what happened." He paused, turned to Danny with a frown. "They're blaming Valerie. They don't know it was her, but they're blaming her other half."

Danny absently rubbed his stomach, relieved that it too was solid. "I suppose I can try and correct it now, can't I?"

Tucker shook his head. "What are you going to do, out Vlad?"

Danny pursed his lips thoughtfully. Then finally shook his head regretfully. "If he'd kill me, it would put you all in too much danger. It's not worth it. Besides, Valerie knows that it wasn't her. She can at least hang up her ghost hunting."

"I suppose," was all Tucker said before silence settled around them again.

"You'll take care of her, right?" Danny asked as the sun began to set and darkness slipped in around them.

"I'll always be there for her. But you should tell her."

"Tell her what?" Danny asked, surprised as he climbed to his feet, abjuring his ghost powers in favor of trying to pretend he was still human, at least for a moment or two.

Tucker followed suit, jade eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "It's not going to kill you to tell her now. You're already dead." Danny paled as Tucker continued on. "Just do it. Quit wasting your chances."

"Tuck, it's too late for that," Danny said quietly, painfully.

"It's only too late if you let it be. You may be dead, but you're still here." Tucker's jaw clenched but he let out the breath he'd been holding and willed the tension away. "I have to go see your family now. Are you coming?"

Danny shot him a surprised look. "Why do you have to see them?"

"Because your secret is out, they have the right to have their questions answered, and Sam is in no condition to do it. I'm not so sure Jazz is either," Tucker finished as he turned to the narrow road that ran through the center of the cemetery and began walking along it, Danny following suit. Gravel crunched beneath two sets of feet.

"How do you know about Jazz?" Danny asked as they found the entrance to the cemetery. He glanced back at the darkening grave that bore his name, then away and out the gates.

"Because she's my friend, too," was all Tucker said.

---

"When did it happen?" Maddie Fenton asked Tucker, her face unnaturally pale as she leaned into her husband's side.

Tucker closed his eyes. "Freshman year. When Danny got zapped by the portal and we all told you that he'd been outside of it. He was inside. He was a ghost when he came back out."

"I don't understand. Jazz, you knew about this?" Jack, this time, his voice deep and frustrated.

Danny floated above them, watching carefully. He'd made the decision not to reveal himself to his family. After seeing how badly Sam had handled it, he was afraid to hurt anyone else like that. And he thought that maybe Tucker was right about Jazz not taking it well. From the circles under her eyes, and the fact that she had already told Tucker that she wasn't going back to school until the new semester started, he knew she wasn't as strong as she pretended to be for their parents.

Jazz nodded mutely at her father, and Danny wondered if she felt guilty about it. It would make sense. She had known, had covered for him so many times. And now she would be questioning herself about the validity of what she had done. She would be telling herself that it could have been avoided, if only she had told their parents.

Danny bit back the pained chuckle that wanted to rise in his throat at that thought. If she'd told their parents, it would have made it worse. She'd known since before Pariah Dark. If she'd told their parents, they would have tried to stop him from doing what he'd had to do. It would have ended badly. He'd have gone against their orders and done it anyway, breaking their trust, or Amity Park would have become part of his kingdom and still be in the ghost zone now.

Either way, it would have been worse than bad.

But Jazz didn't look at things like that. She liked what she could touch, see, prove. She was analytical where Danny was instinctual. It had been instinct that had kept him alive as long as he had been. If he hadn't listened to it, learned from it, he wouldn't have seen his fifteenth birthday, much less his sixteenth.

"He really came to school this morning?" Maddie asked again, her violet eyes pained.

Tucker nodded. "He didn't even realize he was…" He didn't finish the sentence, looking up at Danny where Tucker knew he was floating.

"They said that Danny showed up. Danny Fenton, not Danny Phantom." Jack pulled Maddie closer.

Jazz spoke this time, her voice very soft. "Daddy, he was both of them. Both of them were Danny. He couldn't just be one if he was going to be a full ghost. It makes sense that it would be a mix of the two."

"But why is he still here?" Jack asked. "I don't understand why he didn't move on. Why is _our_ son a ghost?"

"Why are there ghosts at all?" Tucker countered shrewdly, forcing Danny's grieving parents to answer the question themselves.

"Because ghosts have unfinished business," Maddie whispered automatically. "And the unfinished business becomes an obsession, which keeps them from moving on."

Jack frowned. "Why would Danny have unfinished business?"

"Because Danny Fenton _is_ Danny Phantom, and he'd made his mission to protect Amity Park from anything that came," Tucker said evenly. He'd thought about it, he was fairly sure that Danny's unfinished business was his self appointed guardianship. He still thought that it might have something to do with Sam, but mostly he believed it had to do with the town.

And from where Danny watched above them all, he shrugged as Tucker said it. He could admit it, it made sense. It was as good a reason as any for him to have stayed and not moved on. There were other things that could have caused it, but this was more logical than him just not being ready. It had a purpose to it, it felt right.

"It's not something that he'll ever escape from," Jazz said into the silence that remained, and she shot a glance up as she heard a choking sound from above. She looked at Tucker where he sat next to her and he only shook his head. She looked up again, but there was nothing there.

And there really was nothing there. Danny had fled the moment he had realized that Jazz was right. That he was trapped on the mortal coil. That knowledge, on top of everything else, was more than he could bear, and for the second time that day, he fled.


	3. Chapter 3

Is There Still

3

The first time he fired an ectoblast after he died, Danny freaked out so badly that he lost control of it completely and destroyed the ectopuss he'd been chasing. That only made the panic escalate, as did the stares and pointed fingers from the people of Amity Park as he flew through the town above them, bent on trying to stop the ectopuss from hurting anyone or damaging more than it already had.

That had been before school had started, and he'd almost sworn he saw a familiar red beret among the people looking up at him, and a darker figure next to him, her pale face turned away. That had hurt, but the hurt had gone in a flash as Danny realized that whatever ghost powers he had had before as a halfa, had been dramatically altered upon his death and graduation to full ghost.

They weren't the same, and he knew it. They were stronger—he'd never been able to do what he'd done to that ectopuss before, not even on accident. They even felt different as they surged through him now, a constant thrill of heat through him that could rise up and distract him if he let it. The ebb and flow of power within him was almost hypnotic, but it was a hypnosis he found easy to break after the shock he had three hundred feet above Amity Park.

Not only was he Danny Fenton in a black hazmat, but his powers were no longer a vivid green. No, now they were an icy blue, a freezing blaze inside him that begged to be used, to be let out, to do it what it had been created to do. _To protect._ And that he hadn't done. At least, not intentionally, and it had taken him the better part of the afternoon to come to terms with the sudden and drastic change.

It was familiar, so familiar, but so different. And confusing. But he wasn't a halfa anymore. He couldn't count on anything being the same as it had been before he'd died. Finished dying, he thought quietly as he drifted invisibly down the halls of Casper High, stopping every few doors to peer in and identify familiar faces, students and teachers alike.

One thing was for sure, not a single person looked completely there. Anyone who had actually known Danny looked kept peering around every so often like they expected him to just show up for class again. An odd smile quirked at Danny's mouth and he considered actually doing that. It could be fun. It could be a lot of fun. And so easy to just pop into Mr. Moody's classroom and pick up his book bag with an apology and a ghostly show.

It was still where he'd left it next to his desk.

The bell rang and Danny shot up to the ceiling, above the sudden crush of students, watching closely as they passed beneath him. No one knew he was there. It was almost like he'd never even existed at all. Except there was Paulina, right there down the hall, looking over her should and above her head, like she expected the object of her obsession to drop in at any moment.

And there was Dash, he was looking over his shoulder too. Only his face wasn't hopeful, it was frightened. Like he thought that maybe Danny would come and get his own back on Dash for all the times he'd shoved him into a locker, a toilet. Any of the times he'd pantsed him, given him his best atomic wedgies. Any of the hundreds of cruel torments he'd visited on the smaller student through the years.

And following behind Dash was Valerie. She, at least, looked upset. Whether it was because her ghost hunting persona was still taking the blame for his death, or because he was Phantom, he couldn't tell. Maybe it was just because he was dead. Maybe she'd liked him enough as a person to actually mourn him when he died. Maybe she'd been one of those people to flatten the grass around his grave on his behalf.

And there… There was Sam with Tucker. If he'd had a heartbeat, it would have stopped when he saw her. Or at least stuttered before picking back up at a race. She looked so pale. So tired. Like she hadn't slept in days, like she'd lost her world. "Oh, Sam," Danny breathed into the air above his classmates. He drifted down the hall after Sam and Tucker, and into a classroom, realizing with a smile that it was Mr. Moody's. They'd had him for last period, for world history.

And his back pack was still untouched, until Sam and Tucker took their customary seats and Sam reached out one slender arm to grab the bag and tug it over to sit beside her, her fingers digging into the nylon of it as she shot a weak smile at Tucker. The bell rang again and Danny flew to the back of the classroom, careful to stay high enough that the wind of his passage wouldn't disturb anyone.

There was a paper on Tucker's desk, his messy handwriting was scrawled across it. Danny didn't have the chance to read it before Tucker folded it over and passed it to Sam who opened it and nodded her head before bending down and putting her own pen to the paper. Danny dropped lower, reading the three words Tucker had written. _Are you okay?_

Sam's reply was neater than Tucker's scrawl, and Danny breathed a little easier as he read it. _I'm fine. I miss him._

The paper went back to Tucker and Danny was struck by the urge to join in on the note passing as he had so many times before. Instead of writing anything, he reached a hand out and poked Tucker in the side. Hard. Tucker's eyes shot wide and he squirmed over as he looked wildly around like he expected an attack. And maybe he did, Danny realized as Tucker dropped his head back to the paper and printed out Danny's name, following it with several question marks.

"Yeah," Danny said softly as he dropped down to the ground in between Tucker and Sam, his face close to Tucker's ear so that he couldn't be heard as he stood between them.

Tucker's hand fair flew across the paper, then passed it to Sam without even folding it. She read it and shot up straight as she looked at Tucker through Danny. The smile on her face, the hope, the affection… Danny couldn't help it as he touched her cheek with his fingers, and then dropped them to hold onto her hand tightly. She squeezed back, closing her eyes.

"I miss you, too," he whispered as he leaned down to her. He brushed his lips across her cheek and took the pencil in his own hand, scrawling one sentence and waving it at both of them, knowing that if anyone saw the paper floating in the air that there might be mass hysteria. _I'm going to have some fun. I'll see you both later._

Then he chuckled as he let himself lift back into the air, dropping the invisibility and smiling as thirty or so sets of eyes swiveled to face him. Out of all of them, there were only two pairs that weren't afraid, and Danny almost laughed as Dash cowered low in his seat. He dropped back to the ground beside Sam and hefted his book bag up, looping it over his shoulder before strolling down the aisle between desks, taking care to walk inches above the ground.

"Sorry, I forgot my bag," Danny said coolly to Mr. Moody, and Tucker and Sam collapsed in the back of the room, hands clapped over their mouths as Danny calmly walked _through_ the classroom door.

"Oh my god," Sam breathed.

Tucker chuckled and then reached out and grabbed her hand, the smile wide on his face as he brandished the note at her. "You need to tell him." Her lavender eyes went wide and she shook her head. "He's already dead, Sam. There will never be a better time." Even as Tucker said it he wanted to laugh.

Postmortem matchmaking was wrong on so many levels.

"You think so?" she asked suddenly, and Tucker nodded, not even breaking eye contact as Sam's hand shot in the air and she followed it to her feet. "I need a pass," she said to Mr. Moody, who was still staring after the door.

"I, uh—" the perplexed man started.

"Women's troubles," Sam said evenly, and almost ran to the front of the room, snatching the hall pass from Moody's desk without waiting for his answer. She raced out into the hall and looked left, then right, and spotted Danny whistling his way to the doors.

"Danny!" she called after him and took off, her boots pounding loudly against the floor, and he turned around just in time to catch her as she flew into him. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly, letting her eyes close as he dropped his book bag and pulled her into a hug.

After a long few moments Sam pulled back, looking up into his dancing blue eyes with a smile. It felt like one of the first she'd smiled since he'd died, and she realized that Tucker was right. There wasn't a better time. He was still there. He might be dead, but he was still there. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, words that would explain how she felt, but when she tried nothing came out.

She closed her mouth, swallowed, and then tried again. "I missed you. I'm sorry about yesterday."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and hugged her again. "Don't be, I understand. Tucker told me some of it."

There was a slamming door behind her and Sam glanced back, startled, realizing that it was Moody's classroom door closing. "I have to go back," she said softly. "After school, right? You won't forget?"

He shook his head. "I won't be late. I'll just be floating around here. I promise."

"Don't forget," she said again, and startled him as she brushed her lips across his in a swift kiss. Before Danny could do more than let his fingers tighten on her waist Sam was pulling away and hurrying back down the hall to her classroom. She gave him one final glance before she slipped back inside and dropped the pass back onto Mr. Moody's desk, ignoring his stunned face and serenely making her way back to her desk.

"What'd I miss?" she asked Tucker as she flipped her notebook open, ignoring the eyes that were now glued on her.

Tucker shrugged and gave her a smug grin. "Nothing. Finally."

---

The city was beyond quiet as Danny flew over it that night. He'd run into a few problems, familiar friends. The Box Ghost hadn't even tried to cause trouble, only turned tail and run—flown—when Danny had lit up the dark sky in a brilliant fiery blue. He followed but let the Box Ghost go when he realized exactly why he was frightening the poor ghost. He'd been, almost literally, on fire with his new powers. It had scared Danny into a complete loss of power and the Box Ghost's traditional "Beware!" had fallen on startled ears as he'd fled completely, back towards Fenton Works and the portal.

And Danny had known when he'd gone through it back into the Ghost Zone, just like he'd known when Skulker had come through it some time later.

But somehow, he hadn't expected Skulker to _hide_. He'd been flying around for hours now, searching. The odd connection Danny had to his parents' portal had only told him who had come through, and when it had happened. The moment that Skulker had left the vicinity of Danny's house, had made it past the boundaries that made it a home, he'd dropped off of Danny's odd new radar.

The usual haunts were empty of all ghosts. The park, the school, even the Nasty Burger. That one was actually really creepy, Danny decided as he flew towards Axiom Labs. The Nasty Burger wasn't exactly empty, there were people there. But more than half of them worked there. Considering a full shift at the Nasty Burger was eight people… Danny shook his head as he dove into Axiom, flying invisibly and intangible through it in a quick reconnaissance.

It was emptier than the Nasty Burger. At least at the Nasty Burger there had been Sam and Tucker. That was where he'd left them when the Box Ghost had shown up. It occurred to Danny as he shot back up into the air and floated a hundred and twelve feet above Amity Park, that the Nasty Burger had probably been so empty because he'd been there. True, he hadn't stayed for very long, and he hadn't really done much of anything except float along with Sam and Tucker as they ordered.

It wasn't his fault that people stared. Or were afraid.

And it was there, a hundred and twelve feet above Amity Park that Danny took a massive ectoblast in the back, for the second time in his admittedly short life. It hurt. It _hurt_ and Danny screamed as he fell, shifting back to human on automatic as the pain bled through him in waves. The air whistled past his ears, making his eyes water as he fell, and when he hit the ground with a resounding crash, with the feeling that every bone in his body had been shattered, even the screaming was cut off.

Through hazy eyes smeared with blood Danny looked up and saw a shadowy figure floating above him, heard a sinister laugh. Then Sam was screaming from somewhere next to him—he couldn't see her, but he could hear her. "Don't touch him!" she screamed. "He's already dying."

More noise, Danny heard a faint whimper. A sobbing, shuddering gasp that made blood well in his throat and trickle from the side of his mouth as he choked on it. The whimper, the pained cries. They were his. Blue eyes slipped closed again and Danny tried to breathe around the pain, the aching burning feeling in his back. It shot through him and he thought he might be crying as he forced his eyes open again and tried looking around for Sam, for the shadow.

All he could see was pale hands painted scarlet with blood as he looked down the length of his body. There was blood. There was blood everywhere, mingled with shattered concrete and pooling around him, underneath him. He was dying. _Again,_ he thought wildly and tried swallowing.

The pain was more than it was worth and Danny let his head fall to the side, eyes slipping closed as blood trickled past his lips. He thought he might have said her name, might have tried to tell her how much he loved her. He knew he wondered where she had come from, who had shot him, how they had killed him when he was already dead.

And then it was all gone, and Danny was again floating one hundred and twelve feet above Amity Park, a faint ache echoing in his back as he spun around midair in terror. Skulker was behind him, one of his upgrades smoking as he watched in satisfaction, and then in growing confusion. Danny's breathing was harsh with the remember pain of… Of whatever that was, he thought, and he looked down at his body, at his hands.

Black hazmat, white gloves. As ghost as ever.

The hands glowed blue for a moment and Danny thought he heard Sam screaming again, faintly from inside his mind, and he looked back up at Skulker, his eyes afire with the full strength of his ectoenergy. Sapphire ectoenergy rippled around him in sickening waves of ghostly fire and Danny stared blindly, the taste of blood still vivid on his tongue.

Energy flared out from him, bathing the darkened skies above Amity Park indigo, and Danny breathed one word as blue fire bled from his eyes.

"_Run."_


	4. Chapter 4

Is There Still

4

It took Danny three days to regain control of the power he unleashed when he destroyed Skulker. The morning of the fourth Danny returned to Amity Park, and then to Casper High to seek out the two people he trusted most in the world. School had been in session for long enough that they were well into third period when Danny floated through the dry erase board hanging at the front of the classroom, eyes faintly burning with the icy blue fire that was his ghost energy.

The expected reactions came. Fear, incredulity, startlement. Happiness and relief from two significant sources were Sam and Tucker lounged bored in the back of the classroom, the books still closed and definitely not opened for the lesson that was well under way. Paulina was there, smiling hopefully, and Danny let his eyes slide past hers as he drifted past a stunned Mr. Lancer.

Who finally found his voice and broke the silence with, "_Moby Dick!_ Don't you have any place else to haunt, Mr. Fenton?"

Danny smirked, sparks flying as he made his way back to the rear of the room where Tucker and Sam where sitting, looking like they were trying not to laugh. It wasn't going so well, considering the way they were doubled over with their hands plastered to their mouths. The laughter faded significantly when they took full status of the obvious changes in Danny, but it was still there as Sam stood and held her hand out.

Danny shot a questioning glance at Tucker who shook his head and shrugged. "Pick me up after school?"

Danny nodded and shot a wide smile back at Mr. Lancer. "I'll be back to haunt you later, Mr. Lancer," he said with a chuckle as he drifted up off the floor, Sam firmly against him as he turned them both intangible and flew them up through the second floor and then the roof, high into the clouds that drifted lazily over Amity Park.

For her part, Sam was content to float along with Danny, her arms wrapped around his neck and her face pillowed against his shoulder as the air grew thin and chill with altitude. She was on the verge of complaint when the flight leveled out and they drifted above the clouds, far, _far_ above the clouds with darkness closing in on them and the curve of the earth resting at their feet.

"_Oh,_" she breathed into his ear, and Danny smiled at her as he brushed some hair back from her face.

"I'm sorry I was gone for so long," he said as they spun slowly around and Sam got a closer view of space than she'd ever wanted.

"I wasn't worried," she breathed. Or thought she did as she realized that she really wasn't, and then she looked down. "Oh my god. Am I dead, too?"

Danny laughed. "No. You're still intangible. You don't have to breathe if you're intangible." When her eyes went wide he held her closer. "We're too high for the air to sustain anything. We can go back down if you want, I'm sure we'll be right on time to meet Tucker."

She nodded, closing her eyes and leaned into Danny as they started to descend. "School isn't over for hours," she muttered.

There was silence for a long time, only the sound and scent of wind as it parted around them, clouds that seemed to cling to them as they cruised back towards earth. Then Danny asked her, "How long do you think it takes for us to fly to the edge of the atmosphere safely?"

"I don't think I want to know," she replied shakily as she finally opened her and looked down to see her classmates milling around the school like ants.

Danny chuckled. "I'm kidding. It's only lunch time. We weren't gone that long." And when she glared at him wildly, eyes flashing violet, he laughed. "I'm already dead, you can't kill me again."

"Don't say things like that," Sam said softly, her face falling and her eyes darting away from his as they skimmed the treetops next to the courtyard of the high school.

Danny let them touch down, trying to ignore the tremors in Sam's body as his feet hit ground. _Better not to ask,_ he thought painfully. He mentally kicked himself for being ten kinds of fool. He should have known better than to joke about it; Tucker had told him she wasn't taking it well.

But she was taking it better since he'd stayed. Since he was still there.

"We should find Tucker," Danny finally mumbled. But as they searched the crowd of students, hands still clutching and remaining invisible, they realized that the familiar red beret was nowhere to be seen. "You think he skipped out after we took off?" Danny finally asked her, sounding much more like his old self than he had since before he'd found out he was dead.

Sam only shrugged. "I don't know. He's been spending an awful lot of time at your house lately."

Danny shot her a bewildered look but suddenly remembered the day in the cemetery when Tucker had said, _"Because she's my friend, too."_ It made sense to Danny suddenly, and he looped an arm around Sam's waist and shot them both up into the air and towards the hulking structure of Fenton Works and the Op Center array that was visible from all parts of the town. Truth be told, it was a landmark in Amity Park and well known in most of the surrounding cities.

The closer they got the more nervous Danny became, until they were standing in front of it and he thought that maybe moving on would have been a better option. Who cared if Amity Park was wiped from the face of the earth? Anything, even that, would be better than the rippling green shield that was in front of him, surrounding his once home, and locking him out. Danny closed his eyes against the sudden pain, the realization that his family hated him. His parents, at least, since Jazz had known and accepted before he'd ever thought to tell her.

It was a nightmare.

"Wait here," Sam said softly and walked through the ghost shield, not even bothering to ring the bell or knock. She simply reached out and tried the handle, pushing it open when she found it unlocked. Danny, however couldn't stand there and wait.

For one, it felt far too exposed, no matter that his secret was so far out it might as well be orbiting Saturn. Everyone in town had to know by now, he knew that despite the lack of news breaks to tell him. It was just logical that a couple of classrooms full of high school students wouldn't keep their mouths shut on one of the biggest gossip stories of the year.

For two… It just hurt.

Danny floated up, his eyes still closed, until he could open them and look down on the Op Center and Fenton Works from above it, and the familiar figures that were sitting on the stoop in the tiny backyard. Jazz's familiar red hair _tucked against Tucker's shoulder?_ She looked like she was crying, he thought and flew lower so that he could see more clearly, even if it was distorted a bit by the shield.

Jazz was crying, all over Tucker, who didn't seem to mind in the least. Who'd skipped out on school to sit there with her. Who was holding her closer than Danny wanted to think about. Who was stroking bright red hair back from Jazz's face. Who was _kissing her!_ Danny could only blink in shock and surprise as the backdoor flew open and a very angry Sam rushed out.

Jazz and Tucker didn't so much spring apart as jump up in surprise, and Danny looked, really looked, and realized that his sister was small. Smaller than Tucker, now, and Tucker was actually stepping forward of, and slightly in front of Jazz. Like he was trying to protect her, until he realized it was Sam and not someone else.

There was heated arguing, mostly from Sam, and then a surprised, floored look on her face. Dawning understanding, and Danny just shook his head and drifted away from the vantage point he had, flying higher so that he could look down at the town. A nightmare. It was his nightmare: dead and unwanted by everyone now, in the very place he'd tried to protect for so long. In the very place he'd given his life to save.

The tiny bouncing figure was what shook him out of his depression and Danny drifted lower, then flying down to touch down lightly as he realized that it was Sam, and she was smiling just outside of the edge of the ghost shield.

"It's not against you, Danny," she explained happily. "It's to keep Vlad out; Jazz told them everything."

"What?" was all he could think to say, and then the front door was opening to show Jazz and Tucker standing there, and a pained smile on his sister's face.

She walked down the stairs and outside the shield to wrap him in a tight hug. "I'm glad you came," she whispered honestly before pulling back to look him full in the eye, and Danny realized that not only was Jazz smaller than Tucker, she was smaller than him. He almost smirked down at her simply because he was looking down, until he saw the faint shadow of worry in her eyes.

"They wanted to see you," she said simply.

Danny glanced over at Sam who nodded, and then to Tucker who just looked back evenly. "They're not going to…?" Jazz shook her head. "And I can really just… walk through it?"

"Or fly, if you'd rather."

Danny shook his head and Jazz reached out and took his hand into her own, ignoring the iciness of his touch and the faint blue sparks that still flew about his eyes as he followed her hesitantly through the shield, and then up the stairs, and then inside of Fenton Works. _Home,_ he thought once, I looked around with a twinge of longing from in his chest.

His eyes burned as they moved across everything that he'd known while he was alive, and then came to a startling halt on the couch. And the two silent and still figures that were his parents. Danny stopped, tensed, prepared to fight or flee in a very primal way. He felt a tug on his hand and looked down at Jazz, really down he realized, and dropped back down to the ground to turn nervous eyes back to his parents.

His father, who had stood and come towards him, and his mother who was only steps behind. The burning grew stronger and Danny struggled against it, trying to hold the sudden fear at bay, and the indescribably urge to throw himself into their arms and just cry.

"Did you think we wouldn't understand?" his father asked quietly, and Danny let his eyes drift closed against the pain in his voice.

Then he felt a hand on his arm and looked down at his mother, and the sad but reassuring smile on her face. "Danny, we're your parents. We love you no matter what."

He hesitated for a moment. A heartbeat. But certainly no longer than that before throwing himself into their arms and clinging, crying and murmuring frantic apologies as they just held him.

---

The sun had set long before life was seen outside of the Fenton house. Danny, Tucker and Sam were all gathered in the backyard at Danny's behest—the house, his room, it still hurt too much for him to be able to bear it for too long. It was nothing more than a reminder of a life that he could never have again, no matter what anyone said. He wasn't Danny Fenton anymore. Nor was he Danny Phantom, either. No, he was something in between, and no longer even half human.

He was a ghost. A full ghost, and he knew it better after the things he had done with his newfound powers than he ever had before.

"You're not the same, you know," Tucker commented as Danny drifted on his back several feet in the air, a swirling ball of blue dancing across his fingers and knuckles.

Danny shrugged, like he wasn't surprised. He wasn't, he already knew he wasn't. "What do you expect? It's been a rough week. First I died, then I came back to haunt the town. Cut me some slack."

The words barely crossed his lips before he and Tucker both were shooting anxious stares at Sam. She seemed oblivious but the set of her shoulders, the just so poise of her jaw told them otherwise. Danny sighed and looked at Tucker apologetically. Tucker, for his part, only glared for a moment then shrugged and nodded.

"You're taking risks you never would before," he said quietly.

"My secret wasn't out before," Danny replied, unconcerned.

"You're doing things for the pure mischief of it."

Danny shrugged again. "Who's going to give me detention if I pull a few pranks?"

"Danny," Tucker started, but Sam cut him off, her violet eyes lidded as she looked over at them, at Danny in particular.

"You're acting like a poltergeist," she said evenly, but barely loud enough for either boy or ghost to hear her. "You're acting like you've forgotten what it's like to be human."

The words echoed in his ears and Danny fought off a sudden wave of vertigo that slammed him into the ground with an ectoplasm jarring thud. "I'm not human anymore," he said thickly as he blinked rapidly, the dizzying wave pounding through him harder, more violently.

"Danny," came Sam's voice, hollow and fading as darkness slid over him, making him wince and shudder against the sudden onslaught of icy coldness.

"You don't really think that you are still human, do you, Daniel?"

It was a mocking tone, one that Danny recognized easily even as he struggled to his knees from the ground, green ectoenergy flaring around his fists and making his eyes go wide with confusion as he stared at them. it was only then that he realized, looking around him, that he wasn't at home anymore, in his backyard with his friends. No, he wasn't anywhere near there.

He was in the middle of the park, very near to the ruins of what had once been the fountain, and somewhere above him was Vlad Plasmius, taunting him and trying to trick him into death.

"Oh god," he gasped and searched wildly for Tucker and Sam, but they were nowhere to be seen. No, not true. Tucker wasn't there, but Sam was huddled against a tree on the other side of the clearing, bright red blood dotting her face, but try as he might Danny couldn't find any injuries. His eyes shot up at the evil ghost above him and he felt power pooling inside him, seeping out at his hands, then at his eyes, until he was encased in a sickly green fire that crackled and lifted him up from the ground so that he could face Plasmius on his own ground: the air.

But Plasmius continued on like nothing odd was happening, like the display of power that Danny knew from experience was deadly and dangerous, even to ghosts. _He can't see it,_ Danny realized, and the terror welled up inside him as hysterical laughter.

He heard screaming from beneath him and looked back, ready to shoot a bolt at anything near Sam. It was her voice, her screaming, and he caught sight of a faint shimmer that confused him even more. _I killed Skulker._ It didn't settle as he watched, and then instinctively let loose with an ectoblast that pounded Skulker against and then through the tree Sam had been leaning against.

But the blast was nowhere near as massive as it should have been considering the amount of power he had pushed into the effort, and Danny stared at Sam for a moment. The blood wasn't hers, he decided, and against held his white gloved hands up to inspect the faint green glow about that. A faint green glow that flicked and hissed over dots of blood on his gloves, and it took Danny a second to realize that the blood, on both his hands and Sam's face, was his.

"Sam," he started to say, and then stopped as his voice turned into an echoing scream that bounced off of everything around him, a ghostly wail that tore down more than he had saved in the fight.

Fire danced at his stomach and he saw Vlad next to him, felt something sharp and hot pressed against his side making him writhe before he let loose with all of the power he had amassed and hadn't been able to use before. Blue energy flared out, burning everything in its path with icy heat. Danny fell back to the ground gasping, clutching his side in a grimace of agony.

Moments passed, then minutes with nothing but the sound of his own ragged breathing filling the air. Then soft hands on his shoulders, warm and sure, and a whispered, Danny?" had him jerking away, stumbling to what had once been a fence but now was nothing but smoldering wreckage.

"Don't touch me!" he cried, and Danny's eyes went wide as he looked around and realized that he was back in his own backyard. What had once been his backyard, he amended, and surveyed the damage realizing that he had been the cause of it. There were still ghostly flames dancing on sparse patches of grass, and along some of the pieces of wood scattered around him.

"It's just me," Sam said carefully as she crept towards him, her face smudged and part of her skirt singed, and Danny shook his head frantically as she came close again.

"Don't. Please don't!"

She held her hands out entreatingly, and repeated, "It's just me. I'm not going to hurt you."

"What's happening to me?" he whispered piteously.

And Tucker's voice from behind him, steady and concerned. "I think you're remembering, Danny."

---

Moby Dick is written by Herman Melville.


	5. Chapter 5

Is There Still

5

"I don't want to remember," Danny whispered to himself as he stared out into darkness that was liberally scattered with twinkling stars. He'd taken himself back up to the edge of the atmosphere, even now unwilling to take the last step into space while he fought the growing headache that was the result of trying to suppress the memories of exactly how he died.

He'd already died… how many times had he died? He thought about it and decided that it was completely wrong for anyone to have died as many times as he had. Only on a technicality, was it four times. He didn't relish adding a fifth to the number. The first and second, both when he had been electrocuted inside his parents' ghost portal and had gained his ghost powers. The third when… The third when Vlad Plasmius had killed him. The fourth the night that he'd killed Skulker, the memory of that death so vivid and real that he couldn't not add it.

If he let the memories come again it would be that much worse. It would be five times, and he'd remember it all. He didn't want to do that. He didn't want to remember the pain, the fear, the way Sam had screamed and cried. No, none of it, he didn't want any of it.

"Leave me alone!" he cried out, doubling over as his hands clutched his head. _I'm dead_, he thought frantically. _It shouldn't still hurt, please, it can't hurt._

The air around him flickered and he groaned, unsteadiness making him drop hundreds of feet in mere moments as he tried to focus on the horizon, the curve of the earth, the way the sun was disappearing steadily behind it as the earth rotated on its axis. Twice as much as the faint taste of blood wound its way up his throat. He touched his lips and could only grimace at the green tinge across it before he lost the fight and the sky became a burnished blue instead of the night that had fallen.

"Please," he whispered one last time before blue eyes swirled into green and Danny found himself hovering above Casper High, students milling below as his body instinctively dodged an ectoblast that came close enough to try and singe hair.

He was only a passenger along for the ride, Danny realized as he shot off toward the park and away from the students who had just been released from school. The last bell had only just rung. Danny knew it somehow, knew that he'd walked out on class and would be in a lot of trouble if he survived… But he wouldn't survive, would he? No, because he was already dead, reliving a memory that had happened nearly two weeks before.

Sam. He glanced back and saw her pounding pavement after him, keeping a respectable pace up as she ducked into the park behind him, a Fenton thermos in hand and ready to be aimed if she got the chance. Sam, and not Tucker, because he was serving a detention that he'd gotten for distracting a teacher while Danny snuck out of class to deal with Skulker that morning.

A setup. Anger tore up inside of Danny as he realized it had been a setup from the very beginning. Tucker was serving detention to deprive Danny of that side of his support, Sam had… Sam hadn't gone to her detention. It was fuzzy, but it was there. Sam had been given a detention by Mr. Lancer himself because she—Skulker—had kept knocking her notes and English book off of her desk.

But Sam had followed anyway, something that hadn't been part of the plan Plasmius had made.

"Come now, little badger. Do you really think you can escape me?"

That hateful voice, the cultured tones. Danny wanted to turn back and let loose some of the power he'd gained at death on the older halfa and, even knowing that he couldn't change anything, tried. Nothing happened, he still flew on course over the park, and then he was crying out in pain as something drove down into him from above, and into the fountain, shattering the carved stone and making him shift back to human for a moment.

Blood, on his hands, across his side and left arm. Sam close enough to take a flying leap and barrel into Skulker where he was holding Danny down, and Danny jerked with the force of her tackle, blood spraying up and onto her face, smearing crimson against pale skin. _That's how it happened,_ he thought faintly as his body regained his ghost form and shot back up into the air firing rapid ectoblasts at Plasmius.

Most went wide, but a few made it to him only to crash into a hastily erected shield. It had been on purpose, the myriad of missed shots. He'd been trying to distract Plasmius, hoped to get something through to hit him. _I knew,_ Danny realized as he sat back in his body and watched another exchange of fire. _I knew that if I didn't pull off a miracle I was going to die._

And _that_ hurt.

"You can't protect yourself," and Danny gasped, shuddering and clutching his stomach as a well aimed shot hit him. "You can't protect your little friends."

Green eyes flashed and Danny found himself opening his mouth to fire off a sharp retort. "My friends can take care of themselves," he shot at Plasmius and dodged another blast. "At least I'm human, and not some crazed up fruit loop!" he shouted and managed to get a blast through to send Plasmius stumbling back through the air.

He only floated up and spread his arms wide, laughing loudly, darkly. "You don't really think that you are still human, do you, Daniel?" A blast took him full on in the chest and Danny fell back to the ground.

He managed to regain his knees, then his hands glowed in green waves of energy as he glared up at Plasmius. "I'm more human than you are, than you ever were!" he yelled at the evil halfa with as much defiance as he could muster.

He jumped back into the air, flying up until he was even with Plasmius and shooting him a fierce look. And then the expected screaming from below. "Danny! Look out!" Sam screaming his name, trying to warn him. He tried to stop himself, tried not to turn, but his body did, disobedient to his will. Skulker was below him, still on the ground, with Sam clinging to his arm and trying to keep him from getting a lock on him to fire one of his favorite upgrades.

He fired a fairly strong blast at the ghost and Sam's eyes widened and she flung herself back just in time to avoid being sent through the tree with Skulker as the green energy his him and knocked him back. And the fire in his side that made him scream, tore a ghostly wail from his throat and uprooted more than half of the park before Plasmius let him go and he dropped to the ground weakly, struggling to stay Phantom and not lose consciousness as Fenton.

He stayed, but barely, green eyes half closed and body trembling with the strain, with the pain.

_Please, I don't want to, please don't make me, _Danny pled silently as his body lifted back into the air. _I don't want to know, I don't want to die again, I don't want to hear her scream again, please!_

And a new blast of energy that ripped across his right shoulder drawing green blood, the sudden surprise, the new pain, the fear—the terror—as he realized that he hadn't been intangible when it hit him. That he'd been trying to go intangible, sure he had gone intangible, and he was still there, as solid as Danny Phantom was. As solid as Danny Fenton was.

"Do you like?" Plasmius asked wickedly as Danny clung to the oozing wound at his shoulder. "I call it the Plasmius Mortus. It negates intangibility in ghosts. In you, Daniel."

Danny shook his head and tried again, already knowing that it wouldn't work, but unable to stop the attempt anyway. He flew higher, angrily saying, "That's not possible."

"But it is," Plasmius said with a smug chuckle, and Sam screamed again making Danny turn, ready to dive and save her if need be. That was what had done him in. that Sam was there, that Sam had distracted him. He knew it, but he didn't blame her. She was trying to help, had helped him more times than he could remember. How could they have known that she would provide the distraction to create the opening for Danny's murdered to… murder him.

"Sam!" he yelled as he Sam Skulker grabbing on to her and shoving her into the tree trunk, the thermos lost and shining in the grass several feet away.

The ectoblast took Danny in his back, low and dead center, searing a gaping wound through him. He screamed. He fell and he screamed. Tears streamed from his eyes as wind burned them, and Danny tried desperately to shut them, to block out the sensation of falling, already knowing exactly what it felt like, not wanting to see the ground that rushed closer and closer.

He hit, hard enough that he heard the actual snapping of bone, the sickening crunch as the back of his skull collided with cement. The scream was gone, the breath driven from his lungs as a stabbing pain ripped through him as ribs pierced both lungs, shredded his liver and spleen, punctured his stomach and intestines in more places that he could conceive of. It burned, ached, and he opened blood blurred eyes as he tried to make a sound, any sound, any_thing_ to express the pain.

Nothing came but a sinister, satisfied laugh above him. "You see why it is named for death, now don't you, Daniel?"

It came closer, and suddenly he felt ice cold hands on him, fluttering at his throat, smoothing hair back from his face. Sam, it was Sam, he could see her almost clearly, even if she was tinged red with blood that he couldn't blink away. She was crying. That was wrong, Sam didn't cry, she shouldn't be crying. But she was, tears were falling onto his face and mingling with the blood, and he tried to move again only to whimper with the sudden rush of agony.

And then Sam screamed, her face turned up to where he knew Plasmius had to be. "Don't touch him!" she screamed. "He's already dying."

The very words he'd already heard her scream once, and his entire body shuddered. Another whimper, and he choked on blood that rose in his throat and flooded his mouth. It was thick and harsh on his tongue, salty copper as it dripped past pale lips and trickled down his cheek to curve down his face, beneath his ear and drip to the ground, adding itself to the crimson puddle already beneath him.

His eyes slipped back closed and he tried to force them open, barely hearing Sam as she whispered, "He's dying." He tried to breathe and couldn't even begin catching his breath, caught between the fierce aches throughout his body, and the burning pain that radiated from his back through him. He was crying. He knew it, knew that hot tears were sliding down his temples and mingling with his hair, with his blood.

Her hands were sliding along his face now, he could feel the warmth of blood smearing as she tried to wipe it away, her lavender eyes wet and pained. "Please, Danny, please hold on. Help is coming, please, just don't die," she whispered frantically, desperately to him.

He tried moving again, lifted a hand and dropped it as he realized it was red, bloody, coated, and he didn't really have the strength to move it any higher than he had. "Sam," he choked, using the last breath he had. Then his eyes slid closed, blue disappearing as blood flowed from his mouth, from his head, from his body. From enough places that he knew there was no way anyone could save him, even if he had crashed right into an emergency room, the best emergency room in the country, with the best doctors and the best equipment.

No, he'd been dead the moment Plasmius had shot him in the back.

"Sam," he tried to say again, knowing that if he did say it wouldn't be understandable. Oh god, he'd been so stupid. He'd never told her how much he cared, how much he loved her. That he would willingly give up his life if he thought it would save her.

She would blame herself. She _did_ blame herself, Danny thought as he tried to pull himself out of the dying Danny's mind. She did blame herself, no matter what he'd thought.

"Oh, Sam," he whispered, and realized that he wasn't staring at darkness anymore, that he wasn't trapped inside himself anymore.

He tried to move, tried to leave, to go back to the night he had flown in to, nearly to the stars, and the bitter realization came that he was still trapped. Only now, he was in his new ghostly form, looking down at Sam, at his broken body.

_I didn't know that the human body held so much blood._

It was bad. It was worse than bad and Danny's stomach roiled as he looked at his bleeding and broken body where it was caved into concrete rubble. The sidewalk had imploded under the impact of his body falling from so high above. There was blood everywhere. Splattered out in a gruesome spray, dotting his face, coating the ground beneath his body.

On Sam. Her hands, smeared on her face.

On Sam, who was only now realizing that Danny's chest wasn't moving, wasn't even trying to rise for one more desperate breath. On Sam, who was only now realizing that the blood wasn't pumping out of the gaping wound in Danny's abdomen, that it was only flowing sluggishly. On Sam, who was only now realizing that Danny's eyes weren't closed, but were half lidded and hazy, bright blue now a faded blue-gray in death.

"No." It was faint, it was terrible. Danny closed his eyes, not wanting to see the scene that might now play out in front of him, Sam and… Not him. Not him ever again. "Oh, no, Danny, no," she whispered, and it tore a gasping sob from Danny's throat as blurry eyes opened unwillingly.

"Sam," he tried to say, tried to touch her, but he couldn't. He still wasn't in control; he was still bound by whatever the Danny-that-had-been had done. It didn't include reacting out to Sam. It didn't include anything but the despair of floating there watching Sam as she collapsed across his bloodstained body and wept.

"Don't, Danny," she pleaded as Danny wished desperately that he could be anywhere but where he was. "Don't leave me, Danny. I need you," and she sat up, pushing lank dark hair back from dead eyes, blood staining a few pale patches of skin that remained at his forehead, underneath one eye. "Please, I love you," she whispered as she let her head drop back to his chest, oblivious of congealing blood that turned her hair sticky and damp.

"No." And this time Danny said it out loud.

The only other sounds were the faint but rising wail of sirens, the steadily hysterical sound of Sam's crying. And then no sound at all as Danny found himself floating back above the curve of the earth, his eyes staring blindly out into the darkness beyond the edge of the atmosphere. Ragged, choking sobs surrounded him, and Danny's gloved fingers felt at his cheeks, coming away damp as he realized he was crying.

_Five times,_ he thought dully. _Now I've died five times._

Aloud, "Oh, Sam," as the full weight of what he'd seen, what he'd relived fell across his shoulders with a sudden backbreaking intensity that threatened to drive him back down to the ground. "Oh, Sam," he said again, and the roiling in his gut doubled him over with violently painful heaves, nonexistent bile trying to force itself out as he tried to purge more than just the sick feeling inside him.

Then he floated at the edge of the world, silent and sad, body still aching and heart ripped and bleeding.


	6. Chapter 6

Is There Still

6

If revenge were an option, Danny Fenton would have butchered Vlad.

But when he'd been alive, revenge hadn't been a driving force for him, and even fully dead, knowing that the only other halfa—now the only one period—in existence was responsible for his murder, he still couldn't bring himself to seek vengeance and disregard everything else. No, he would have to comfort himself with knowing that his family, his mother, now knew everything about Vlad Masters, Vlad Plasmius, and would never give him a chance at her like he wanted.

Badly enough to kill. Or perhaps Danny was just that big of a thorn in his side.

But taking out the anger, the rage, the pain and sorrow and unending _hurt_ on the one who had inflicted it was out of the question. It would put everyone he loved in danger. Mortal danger, since Vlad now had nothing to lose, with his mom so far removed from any positive emotion toward Vlad. And Sam. Especially Sam. And he could never put her in danger, not like that, not just for petty revenge.

"Sam," he breathed into the chilled air as he looked down at the lights of Amity Park. His face was still wet, his eyes still burned, but the air as it moved past him was taking care to dry tears, soothe his eyes as he watched.

The desire, the need, the want to see her was an ache inside his chest. To talk to Sam, to tell her he knew what happened, what he saw. That he loved. Because that was where the worst pain was coming from. The piece of him that called him a million kinds of fool for not telling her, for letting fear rule him and make him run from telling Sam that he loved her.

And now, he would never hear her say that she loved him. Not when it mattered at least. After all, what kind of relationship could he have with her when she was a live and he wasn't? It would be cruel. Better that he leave Amity before it came to that, to protect her from the pain.

But the only thing Danny could think about as he slipped through the wall of Sam's house, was how badly he just wanted to see her.

And to have his heart, or what passed for it in a ghost, stop at the hysterical sobs that echoed in her room. It was dark, unduly so, and Danny reached a hand behind him and twitched one of her heavy purple drapes aside to let a little light fall in. and there, on the bed, was the girl he sought, stretched out, arms clutching a pillow, face buried into it as her slender shoulder shook and heaved as she desperately tried to hide the sounds of her crying.

"Sam," Danny said softly, painfully.

Her face flew up from the pillow, pale cheeks flushed, eyes blurry and red, face damp with tears. "Danny?" she whispered uncertainly. He nodded and before he could blink she had flown at him, her arms wrapped tightly at his waist as she cried again, harder this time, or maybe it only seemed so since nothing was hidden from sight or sound.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed against his chest as he brought gentle hands up to her shoulders. "I tried. I really, really tried, but I can't do it. I can't be strong anymore, it hurts too much."

"I'm here," he whispered pitifully as he pulled her to him, burying his face against pale skin where her neck met her shoulder, trying not to feel the hot warm wetness of tears as they soaked through his hazmat to warm his cold skin. "Sam, I'm sorry."

Her face pressed against his neck and he could feel the hot tears that still fell as he held her tightly. She had tried so hard, how could he have missed it? How could Tucker have missed it? Except that Tucker had his own grief to deal with, and Sam's family was never as involved as his own would have been if it had been Danny who lost one of his best friends. And no one at school could have been counted on to notice that anything was wrong, with the exception of Mr. Lancer and possibly Sam's art teacher…

But it had been so recent, and Sam had always distanced herself from anyone, everyone, save for Danny and Tucker. _Don't leave me, Danny. I need you. _And he'd done just that. Because… Hadn't Tucker said it? He wasn't ruthless enough? So he'd left Sam behind, to suffer.

"You're dead," was all she said, tears falling faster.

"I'm sorry," Danny whispered, helpless against the rage and grief that welled up inside of him. "I'm so sorry, Sam."

_Please, I love you._

He could remember exactly how it sounded, those words falling from her lips over his corpse. Oh god, he wished he could've heard her say it to him, for real, before he'd died. With a ragged sigh Danny pressed his cheek against Sam's, the slickness of her tears, both of their tears, making his face slide against hers until he was pressing a kiss to her shoulder, hands finding her face and turning her to look at him, holding her steady so that she couldn't turn from hi if she tried.

"I'm a fool, Sam," he murmured, inches from her and desperately trying not to break down as he looked into her tear dark eyes. "I'm stupid, I'm sorry. I wish I could go back, fix everything. I swear I wouldn't be so stupid. I'd just tell you."

She tried shaking her head and Danny held her steady against him. "No," he murmured. "I have to tell you, you have to know. Sam, I love you. I've always loved you; I was just a stupid little boy who was too afraid to admit it."

And when she pushed her mouth against his Danny could only close his eyes as he tasted her, salt tears mingling with the sweetness of her lip gloss, the heady scent that was simply Sam. It was wonderful, the most beautiful experience he'd ever had, kissing the girl he loved more than his own life. And the most painful, because as much as he wanted, it was still cold, dead, gloved hands sifting through her hair—he wanted to feel the silky strands against his own hands. Try as he might, he was still cold as she held on to him, he was still keeping himself grounded—literally—when his control slipped and he felt himself drifting up from the floor to hover, Sam's eyes going wide as he pulled away to focus on bringing them back down to her bedroom floor.

"That's never happened before," she said unsteadily as he settled her to the ground, then pushed her back until she was sitting on her bed, face still streaked, eyes still dull and pained, but tears no longer actively falling.

Danny shook his head, dropping to his knees before her and laying his head against her thighs, arms circling her waist to just hold her. "I'm so sorry, Sam. So sorry," he whispered, closing his eyes as he felt warm fingers sliding through his hair, gently feathering down the back of his neck to his shoulders.

"I don't want you to be dead, Danny," she said into the still night air.

Danny sat up, looking at her painfully. He reached out, smooth a gloved hand across her dark with a sigh. "It's not something I can change, Sam. I'm dead. Buried." He paused with a grimace of disgust. "I'm embalmed."

She gave a strangled laugh that was half sob, half genuine mirth. "You still have a gross sense of humor."

"Sorry," he smiled at her. "I'm a guy. We can't help these things."

"I know," she said softly, somber and serious again as she reached forward to kiss him once more. She pulled back, staring at him thoughtfully, one hand fluttering down his cheek as Danny fought to keep his eyes on hers, not to turn his face into the caressing touch the way he wanted to.

"Danny, have you tried going human?" she asked him softly, hesitantly. Almost like she was afraid to ask, like she didn't want to ask… But couldn't help but to ask. And staring into her dark lavender eyes he realized that she was. That Sam was afraid, deathly afraid, because if he said no… If he said no, then there really was no hope for Danny, he'd never be alive again.

It meant there was no hope for them, and they both knew it. And loathe as Danny was to admit it, he already knew that there was no hope. Better than she would ever know, especially after his brushes with the memory of his death. The first time he'd been so happy when he realized he'd been human at some point as he fell, as he lay there. He'd though it wasn't just a memory, it had felt so _real_.

But it hadn't been. He'd tried, and tried.

Danny dropped his head to Sam's shoulder, turning his face into the crook of her neck as he hugged her close, trying to make it as gentle on her as possible, and not daring to look in her eyes as he let out a miserable, "Yes."

He felt her fingers tighten across his shoulders, she still hadn't moved her hands even when he'd moved closer to her. Her breath came in short, shallow exhales and where his cheek pressed against her throat he felt her pulse jump painfully in hope, but more in fear. He breathed a shuddering breath, almost gasping at it even though he knew he was dead and didn't really have to breathe anymore.

"Nothing happened, Sam," he finally said into her shoulder, closing his eyes as he felt tears once again soaking into his hazmat, like scorching drops against dead flesh. "Please don't cry, Sam," he begged as he pulled back, brushing hair from her face and trying to wipe at the tears that slipped down her cheeks. "I didn't mean to hurt you, please don't cry, it's killing me."

She choked on a hysterical laugh and Danny sighed. Even now, the bad phrases wouldn't stop. "Okay, if I were alive, it'd be killing me. Now it just hurts. I don't want you to hurt, Sam. I want you to be happy."

"I'd be happy if you were alive," she said honestly.

"I'd be happy if I was alive, too," he responded, leaning forward to brush cold lips over her cheek.

"I wish you changed something. I wish you could have lived."

The words, despondently breathed out on a sigh, caught Danny's ear. If he could have changed something, if he could change something. If he could… But it was already too late, he realized as he closed his eyes. Even if he sought Clockwork out in the Ghost Zone, it was already too late. He was already dead, that wasn't something he could change, fix.

When he'd gone to the future and brought his evil self back, that had been outside of time, or very nearly. But it had been his present, his future that he had altered. Not his past. Even when he'd slipped through time with Clockwork's help to save Sam and Tucker from Vlad he hadn't exactly rearranged his past. He erased it, which was infinitely worse in outcome, but so much easier to do.

But he could hope. After all, what was the worst that Clockwork could say? No? So what if he did, Danny was already dead. At the very least he could find out if he would have been happy, living. If that future would have been better than the future he now faced: an eternity as Amity Park's loathed spectral defender. Though the loathing seemed to have dropped in the ratings since he was outed as the ghost half of Danny Fenton.

Who would have though that the town would have accepted him being half ghost now that he was all ghost? Of course, that was probably why. He could practically hear Jazz in the back of his head explaining it all in large terms that boiled down to nothing he understood. Probably something along the lines of great shock, general acceptance. That they would never have accepted him without him dying first.

Tell him something he didn't already know.

Danny pulled back, leaned forward and kissed her softly one last time, and then gave her as cheerful a smile as he could. "I have to go, Sam." The pure terror on her face had Danny dropping to his knees before her again, clutching at her arms as her mouth dropped open.

"Y-You're moving on?" she stammered out, her throat closing around the words as her eyes began to burn again, aching and red with the tears she'd already wept.

And Danny shook his head violently at her. "No, no. I'm not moving on, Sam. I don't even think I could, knowing I was leaving you here." He stopped and cupped her face in his hands, leaning forward and resting his forehead against hers before kissing her gently. "I'm going to go get some answers."

"Oh," she breathed out quietly.

"Yeah," he said with a smile. "I think it's about time I got some. But I'll be back, Sam. I promise. I won't leave you without saying goodbye."

"I'd prefer it if you didn't leave me at all," she muttered.

"I know, Sam. I know."

---

He remained invisible and intangible as he flew through his old house and down to the lab in his parent's basement. Danny knew that seeing them again now, so soon after realizing how much his death was hurting those he loved, and the girl nearest his heart, would do something to him. Hurt him, break him beyond the means he had of repairing that pain. He could only be thankful that it was the middle of the night as he drifted to a halt in front of the closed door pf the portal.

For the first time Danny wondered how he was going to get through it. It was closed, bound by the genetic lock his father had installed on it shortly after it had been turned on, and Danny… was a ghost. He had no corporeal human form for the lock to read his genetic material from, never mind that he was made up completely from ectoplasm now with nothing human left except, perhaps, his heart.

He knew that the door kept ghosts from escaping, knew that it kept them from coming out. His only hope was that it wouldn't stop him from trying to phase through it _into_ the Ghost Zone instead of coming out of it. And hope that his parents hadn't installed any new devices to it since he'd died. Otherwise he could be in a world of trouble.

But, he realized as he reached a hand through the door, he could go through it. Maybe his parents had made all of their ghost equipment impervious to his own ectoplasmic signature. Maybe they'd redesigned everything so that he would be safe. And he plunged through, flying rapidly through the rip between worlds that spanned the mortal realm and the Ghost Zone.

And maybe not.

Sparks danced off his body as he burst through whatever field kept ghosts from passing through the portal while it was closed, biting back the scream that wanted to tear out of his throat. A scream that he knew was dangerously bordering on a Wail, a scream that he knew he couldn't give voice to. Whatever energy they had used, it _hurt_, and he knew that he wasn't about to risk going back through while the portal was closed. Not a chance in hell.

But, he realized as he looked around, the stinging burn beginning to recede along his limbs, he was in the Ghost Zone. Which was what he had wanted. And that way, he thought as he turned himself to the appropriate vector, was the quickest way to Clockwork's tower.


	7. Chapter 7

Is There Still

7

"You're late."

The cloaked figure didn't surprise Danny, nor did the admonition. "You knew I would be."

Clockwork smiled at Danny, a genuine smile at the halfa's spunk, and shifted into his infantile state. "True. I did, but I didn't expect you to wait so long before seeking me out." He paused, smirking. "You always do prefer learning things the hard way."

Danny shrugged as he floated toward the ancient Time Master. "I'm a teenager. Is there any other way?" He stopped then, mere feet away from the other ghost, close enough that when he grew into a wizened figure the chill of ghost energy rushed across him. He'd never noticed it before. Of course, he'd never been a full ghost before.

"You know why I'm here," Danny said quietly as he contemplated the viewing portal that Clockwork had obviously been studying before Danny had arrived.

It wasn't aimed to anything in particular, in fact, Danny was surprised to see it randomly flashing images of everything from clouds drifting lazily across a pale blue sky, to a flipping, flopping mass of grunion on a beach trying to continue their species before gasping and dying in the lack of water. He thought it curious at first, that a ghost with as much power, with the kinds of responsibilities that Clockwork must have, that he would spend time taking in these mundane and inane scrap of life.

But no, it made perfect sense when it came down to it. Sure, destiny could be changed in the course of one epic moment—he was proof of that wasn't he? First becoming a halfa, then stopping himself from destroying the world. But life, yes, _life_, was made up of the small moments. The chirp of a cricket, the laughter of a friend. Stammered and fervent denials of affection.

That was life, what Danny had fought so hard to protect. Perhaps only the life of his town. But he was only one person, one boy. One ghost. At least he had tried. Maybe he had failed in the end, hurt more people than need be. But he had tried. And that had to count for something, didn't it?

Another rush of energy and Clockwork was back in his middle aged form, the one that Danny was most comfortable with, and he shot a glance at the Time Master, trying not to sigh.

"It was inevitable, Danny," Clockwork finally said, his staff caged between his hands as he leaned against it, gazing at the portal that now showed a field of yellow flowers bursting into blood at warp speed, then suddenly drying and beginning to wilt.

Danny clenched his jaw, feeling the ache as his teeth ground against each other. "Yeah," he shot back bitterly. "From the day that Vlad became a halfa."

Danny nearly dropped from his perch in the air as Clockwork said, "No, from the day _you_ became a halfa."

"W-what?" he stammered out in disbelief, so sure was he that the responsibility for the inevitability of his fate was in Vlad Masters' hands.

"Are you familiar with the concept of fate, Danny?" the now ancient ghost asked, startling Danny as he realized he hadn't even noticed the shifts the other ghost had been making.

"Yeah. Sort of," Danny said, then shrugged. "I know about the mythology of the fates. You know, one for the life thread, one to call the time, one to cut it with the scissors. Didn't they have one eye between them?"

Clockwork chuckled. "You're crossing your Greek mythology with Disney," he told the younger ghost as he directed his attention to the portal with a wave of his time staff. "Fate, Danny, is a mutable force. Powerful once set on a single course of action, but it _can_ be changed."

The portal flickered for a moment and then settled on an image of a much younger Danny, standing in front of his parents' ghost portal, Sam and Tucker behind him, watching eagerly as he took that first fateful step into the portal, then a second that caught his foot on some exposed wiring, sending him tripping forward to stop dead still as Clockwork froze the image of the past where Danny could stare at it, blue eyes sad as he memorized the day he had died, and had lived.

"That day, that accident, was fate, Danny. It was inevitable."

"You said fate was mutable," Danny whispered back woodenly, one hand absently rubbing the emblem Sam had made for him where it lay across his chest.

"I did," Clockwork said as he pointed a finger to the foot tangled in the cords, ripples from his contact at the surface as the image spreading and making Danny dizzy and nauseous as he watched it. "There is your mutability. Your foot, in the chords, making you trip and trigger the on button, yes?"

"So?" Danny shrugged back.

"I know that you are familiar with electricity and the concept of grounding a current. Imagine, had you not tripped over those rubber coated wires, had one tangled around your leg as that much electricity and ectoplasm forced its way into your body… What would have happened?"

"I could have…?" Danny breathed out as he watched the figure start moving again, untangling itself from the chords, and then tripping again against the uneven bottom of the chamber, one hand reaching out as the startled Danny fell against the wall, tripping the switch and lighting up the basement lab in brilliant green energy.

He waited for the figure to return as the glare faded to show Sam and Tucker, huddled against a wall, their faced buried in their arms lifting, tear streaked now. And he waited. And he waited more. Finally it dawned on Danny that the younger him wasn't going to come back out, and it must have hit the Sam and Tucker in the past because they were terrified and screaming fro help.

Help came, his parents, then paramedics, and then someone finally fished him out form inside the portal, a wretched scorched black figured that crumpled pitifully on the white sheets of the gurney that paramedics has manhandled down the stairs. An oxygen mask, an IV, this, that and the other run into him, attached to him, meant to save but doing nothing.

"I… died?" he finally asked.

Clockwork waited a moment, focusing his considerable power on retaining the figure that was most comfortable for the halfa before he made the boy's worst fears half a reality. "Elsewhen," he finally said softly, his staff waving across the portal so that it showed a hospital, then the interior, a hall, and then a room where a still badly burned boy lay under an oxygen tent, tubes and machines hooked to him as he fought for his life.

Danny was quiet for a long time as the picture stayed, showing friends, family, even enemies wander through it in their grief at the all too likely death of one Danny Fenton. Then finally he breathed in and offered a very quiet, very hesitant, "How?"

"Very slowly. Very painfully." He stopped, pressed the button on his staff and stopped time inside the portal as he turned to Danny, a sincere look of regret on his face. "You must understand, Danny, that you had just as much of a chance of gaining ghost powers as you did dying. The window in which the ectoplasm could properly bond with your DNA at the molecular level… It was very tiny. And increased by the grounding, however unintentional."

"I look like I'm hurting," Danny whispered, eyes glued to the dying boy in it. "Why aren't they doing anything about it?"

"Because they can't," Clockwork said gently, one hand reaching out to grasp the boy's shoulder. "This is the result of electrocution, yes, but it is also the result of ectoplasm trying to force its way into your very genetic makeup. And since it can't…"

"It's destroying me one cell at a time."

"You held on for weeks before you finally succumbed to it. Twenty-seven days, exactly, before your body could no longer support life," and Danny fancied he heard some measure of respect in Clockwork's tone as he said that. "Even without your powers, you were always an exceptional boy. You only needed to realize it.

The picture played again, at rapid speed past his death, his friends and family saying goodbye, his funeral, until the picture suddenly blanked out and settled on another random scene, this time of the ocean and a pod of whales swimming and sounding. Danny clenched a hand to his chest, wondering at how much it hurt to have watched himself die in an alternate timeline.

"It could have been like that? Instead of like this?" he finally asked.

"Yes," was all Clockwork could say.

"So instead of dying I'm granted ghost powers, just so that I can die a couple of years later?" he asked, a bitter edge to his voice as he frowned, blue eyes flashing sparks as he rubbed them in exasperation. "And _what_ is up with this?" he yelled in frustration. "I've got no control over them. I'm shooting sparks!"

Clockwork chuckled as he finally unleashed his own power, flickering rapidly through several changes before settling in as the infant form of himself. "You have enough control that you don't actually shoot ectofire from your eyes."

"I can _do_ that?" Danny asked, startled.

"You can do many things, Danny Fenton. Most of which you would never have guessed before your death."

Danny glanced down at his hands, letting go and feeling the power dance across them in flickering blue flame as he clenched them into fists. "But they're so strong. So different."

"And yet," Clockwork murmured as he let his staff go to float behind him, reaching out to Danny's hands and holding them, turning them over so that the fire danced on his palms, "they are fundamentally the same. Look here," he instructed, and Danny did, staring at the energy as it rippled across his palms until his concentration dulled it to a bright glow, exactly like what he'd carried so many times when he was alive, only differing in color.

"Whoa," he said, and the concentration was broken, ectoenergy flaring up as fire again. "So it's a new power?" he asked.

"It's realized potential, Danny," Clockwork said as he let Danny's hands go, shifting back into his ancient state as he reached for the time staff he knew would be directly to his left. "Or perhaps I should say that it was there all along, you always had this power, but your human half ruled it."

"I don't understand," Danny muttered as he put his flaming hands out and crossed his arms. "I know I'm not exactly the most brilliant guy, but you're being cryptic."

"Perhaps you should _listen_," Clockwork murmured as he turned away and the portal lit back up, this time with a more than familiar image of Danny Phantom, the halfa that was half alive and not all dead, fighting Skulker, one of his most persistent adversaries. "Or perhaps it would be better if you watched."

Not that Danny needed to watch to remember this particular fight. It had happened maybe two weeks before his sixteenth birthday, just two months shy of his death, and it had been the night that he realized how much he cared about Sam Manson. And how quickly he would be willing to sacrifice anything, everything, himself, his town, the very world, if it meant she had even one more moment's worth of time to grace the face of the planet.

Oh, he remembered it well. Skulker had had him on the ropes, so to speak, was giving him a fairly good and thorough beating, when Sam had flung a rock at the back of his battle suit while Tucker tried desperately to hack into the system with a malfunctioning PDA, courtesy of a trip into the park's fountain at the beginning of the fight.

Skulker had turned, _was_ turning to Sam, one of his wrist held weapons powering up and aimed at… Sam. And then Danny had done something… And then Danny had started burning. Danny stared at the Danny that was, eyes wide as he realized that the burning halfa phenomenon had happened while he was alive. Because it had, glaring green flames licked at the tree Skulker had him pinned up against, ate along the metal of Skulker's battle suit as Danny-that-was screamed Sam's name and brought a double fisted ectoblast up to fire into Skulker's chest, blasting a gaping whole through it so that nothing remained but a pair of tiny, dangling green legs.

The screen flickered out, again moving to some random natural occurrence, waves splashing against the pillars of a dock somewhere along an ocean, barnacles crusting the aging wood, and then back to the aftermath of the battle for a moment. But Danny didn't really need the screen to know what happened after that. Tucker sucking up the imprecation screaming blob that was Skulker's true form, and Danny kneeling beside the pale and mostly unconscious Sam, ghostly flames still tracing their way up his arms, across his shoulders, and out of his eyes.

He'd been on fire, and neither of his friends had said a word.

"It wasn't the first time I'd done that, was it?" he asked, feeling very small as he watched the portal return to the dock, the ocean, the rhythmic and soothing sounds of waves lapping against a shoreline.

"No. It wasn't."

"I still don't understand."

Clockwork sighed, very nearly amused. Danny had been absolutely correct when he said there was no other way. The boy did like to have everything spelled out to him, especially when he was frightened and confused, as he had been so often since gaining his ghost powers. He couldn't begrudge the child the explanation because he was too distraught to find the answers on his own, not after everything that had happened to him in the last night, day, and several weeks.

"The easiest explanation is that you could access your power readily when your emotionally involved. The more so, the more easily. And after you died…" A way to put it delicately did not exist, though Clockwork still tried to find one. Telling a boy, a sixteen year old _child_, no matter what he had accomplished, that his humanity had died the moment he had, was not an easy or desirable task.

"You access it so easily now, Danny, because you are wholly ghost. You have no humanity to balance the inhumanity of your ghost half. Nothing to tamp it down, control the ability other than your own willpower."

"So I could have done this all along?" he asked, once again letting rippling fire consume his hands, and then race up his arms to dance across his shoulders, his face, his hair.

"Once your body adjusted to the molecular change, learned to cope with the energy demands… Yes." A simple answer, an easy answer. And probably the best, since the first answer was almost always, invariably correct.

The flames died down and Danny sank to the floor, knees pulling up to his chest as he dropped his face against them, hiding his face from Clockwork no matter that he knew the ghost knew he was crying. He knew that even if he hadn't hid it, the older ghost would still have known he was, and why. Because if he'd used every aspect of his ghost powers, he might very well have been alive.

But there was really only one way to know for sure. And hadn't he come to ask

"Clockwork?" he asked, lifting his damp face from his knees and staring up at the other ghost as he made one of the chilling changes from ancient to middle aged. "Was there something I could have done? Something I could have changed, and lived? I could have been happy?"

"Danny," Clockwork said gently, and with a not ungentle smile on his face. "You're not asking the right questions."

"The right…? Oh, great with the cryptic wit," Danny muttered, scrubbing a gloved hand through his hair in annoyance. All he wanted to know was what his life would have been like if he'd lived, and surely the Master of Time could have taken a look in his little looking glass and told him. After all, he'd been the one to say that time was like a parade for him, and he…

Danny's entire body tensed and blue eyes raised themselves to the Time Master's implacable stare.

_I see the parade from above, with all the twists and turns that it might, or might now, take._

With some difficulty Danny pulled himself up to his feet, his knees—dead or no—somewhat unsteady and very reluctant to hold him up, until he finally gave up and let his body drift a few inches above the floor like the other ghost. Danny knew he wasn't the brightest kid, he'd admitted as much to Clockwork already. But there really was no other explanation for what Clockwork had said. And a smile began to break across his somber face as he realized exactly what the Time Master was saying.

_It's not over yet._

"Clockwork?" Danny finally asked, his voice much steadier than the last time he had said the name. "Is there still a twist that I can take?"

Clockwork smiled, one hand gripping the staff tighter, the other reaching out to squeeze Danny's shoulder. "Better. Much better."


	8. Chapter 8

Is There Still

8

"Hey! I just had my hair trimmed!" Danny yelped as he ducked, one hand going to the newly singed white hair on his head. Then he ducked again, this time flying away from the school.

He vaguely saw his classmates pointing up at him, and he definitely heard Paulina's ecstatic squeals as Danny Phantom flew past. He tried not to grimace as he looked back for Sam and Tucker, hoping that Paulina didn't think the he was looking for her. No such luck, she was blowing him kisses as Danny remembered that Sam and Tucker both had detentions. Or Tucker had detention and Sam was skipping out, because that was definitely Sam and her combat boots breaking through the crowd to race after him as he fled, dodging Plasmius' repeated ectoblasts.

"Come now, little badger. Do you really think you can escape me?"

Danny let out a strangled gasp as he misjudged another ectoblast from Vlad, getting his arm singed in the process. He was in trouble. Oh he was in a world of trouble, and there was no way of getting out for it. The older halfa had never really tried to hurt him before, not like this, not like a cat toying with the mouse it's planning to eat. He needed Sam. He needed Tucker. Hell, at this point, Danny would even be grateful if Valerie or his parents showed up.

Dodging them was bound to be infinitely easier than dodging the deranged fruit loop.

There, _there_! The park, empty, no people to worry about getting hit by falling debris and flying ectoblasts. Or to see the halfa known as Danny Phantom flickering back and forth between ghost and human. That's what it was coming to, Danny was certain of it. Vlad wasn't going to hold back, he was going to make this his D-Day, his invasion of Normandy. He was out for blood, Danny's and—

"Oomph!" Danny gasped out in pain and the breath whooshed out of him as something drove into him from above.

He twisted just enough to take the statue in the fountain in the side, feeling stone crumble beneath the force of Skulker driving him down and jagged edges ripping into flash as Danny lost control of his power and flickered back to Danny Fenton for more than a few heartbeats. His left side burned where stone stabbed into it and Danny felt blood dripping sluggishly from half a dozen scrapes, more than a dozen tiny puncture wounds along it and his arm as he raised his uninjured right to try and force Skulker off of him.

And then Skulker was gone, taken down by Sam in an astonishing tackle that neither of them had been expecting. With a shake of his head, an absent wiping of blood from pale skin, Danny climbed to his feet and then shot up into the air, the familiar silver-white rings forming and leaving Danny Phantom in Fenton's place. He raised his fists, both glowing green, and began taking potshots back at Plasmius.

_This is it,_ he thought dully as he let several ectoblasts loose so that they flattened into Vlad's shield, then tossed one that was actually carefully aimed that almost—but not quite—made it through the shield. _If I can't stop him…_ But Danny couldn't bring himself to finish the thought, especially not when he was sure that this was really _it_.

"You can't protect yourself," Vlad drawled as he leveled a pink ectoblast at Danny, smiling wide when it took Danny in his stomach, making him go pale with the pain and drop through the air a few feet. "You can't protect your little friends."

"My friends can take care of themselves," he retorted, dusking another blast from the older halfa and wincing as the movement made his already injured body scream in protest. "At least I'm human, and not some crazed up fruit loop!"

Danny smirked as he saw Plasmius' face go still at the accusation and took advantage of the opening to send a ball of swirling energy at the other ghost, almost crowing in victory as it made it past Vlad's hastily erected shield to burst into his chest, sending him stumbling back in the air several feet, one hand clutching at the smoldering ruin of his clothes and the faint charring of ghostly skin beneath.

But that moment of pain and surprise was all Danny got before Vlad floated back up to even level with Danny and spread his arms wide, laughing. Just laughing, dark and without humor, sending chills down Danny's spine as he realized that he'd been right before, and that the faint hope he'd had of surviving this battle had only been him misleading himself.

"You don't really think that you are still human, do you, Daniel?" Vlad enunciated carefully, letting his tongue roll over Danny's given name like it was an epithet. He waved a hand at Danny, casual and careless, and the ectoblast rolled over Danny, impacting his chest and knocking him back down to the ground next to the already ruined fountain, concrete cracking beneath the weight of his fall but holding, still holding.

And then he was shouting in pain as he was driven from the air by an impenetrable force, a flash of black and white and—blue? "Of course he's human, you moron," a more than familiar voice shouted as Vlad dropped in the air, fighting to break his fall without hitting the ground as the eerie specter of Danny Fenton in black and white hazmat floated in front and above him.

"I, however," he continued, one hand lifted and blazing with a terrible bright blue flame, "Am not."

---

"Oh my gosh, Danny, are you alright?" Sam rattled out as she dropped to her knees next to his still form as he blinked up, dazed.

"Skulker?" he rasped out as he coughed, touching lips tinged green with ghostly blood. And then he yelped as Tucker popped up from behind him, waving a Fenton Thermos at Danny and grinning hugely. "You have detention! Actually, you both do."

Sam shrugged as she took the thermos from Tucker and gave it a hard shake, smiling darkly at the pained grunts Skulker gave from inside. "Do you really think I'm going to let you go up against Vlad alone, Danny?"

"Yeah, dude," Tucker chimed in. "Okay, so I was planning on staying in detention, but you—he—came and got me."

"He?" Danny repeated dumbly, then followed Tucker's raised arm to see the two figures flying and flashing around in the sky. Vlad, yes, and apparently taking a beating, and… Himself? Really, himself, in his Danny Phantom hazmat. Black hair, blue eyes, blue… _fire?_ "He's _me_."

Sam nodded, eyes shuttered against any real emotion beyond the relief that Danny, her Danny, at least, was still alive.

"Did anyone see?" Danny asked frantically as he rounded to Tucker while climbing to his feet.

Tucker shook his head. "No, it's good. He stayed invisible. But just so you know, they think I was kidnapped by a ghost. They're probably going to pin it on you." He stopped and chuckled. "Well, at least this time it _was_ you, even if that's only a technicality."

"I don't understand," he said weakly as he watched the his other self deliver an exceptionally painful looking punch to the other halfa's jaw, sending him flying into a stand of trees, one going down as the ghosts snapped it's thick trunk like a toothpick. The other Danny floated back over to where he and Sam and Tucker were standing, watching, confused and very nearly frightened.

"It's time to be ruthless," the other Danny said softly as he reached a hand up to finger a familiar medallion, a stylized C and W twined atop a gear.

"You're me?" Danny asked softly, eyes tearing away from the Time Medallion and staring into the burning, sparking flames of his other self's eyes.

He gave Danny a crooked smile and tugged the chain off, dropping the medallion into Danny's unsuspecting hand. "Not anymore. Don't waste this."

The other Danny began to fade out almost immediately and Danny ignored the gasps from either side of him. "I don't understand," Danny burst out as the rest of the other Danny began to wilt into dust motes, swirling around him as he closed his eyes. For a moment, Danny thought he heard someone say, _But you will,_ from in the back of his head, and then he was dropping to his knees, stomach heaving and head aching as a hundred, a thousand, a million painful images raced through his head, making him retch into the grass.

Students staring, Sam and Tucker crying. _We buried you yesterday._ A distorted image—Danny Fenton in Danny Phantom's hazmat. _Beloved son._ Sam hugging him tightly, falling into a pile of broken concrete. _Run._ Blue flame dancing along his body, stealing Sam away to the edges of the atmosphere. Tucker, Jazz, Mom, Dad… And the pain. Oh, god, the pain that rippled through his body as he stared up into darkness.

_Please, I love you._

Her lips, her hair, her body, her tears. _I don't want you to be dead._

"Is there still a twist that I can take?" He didn't realize he'd said it out loud, still lost in the handful of memories he'd manage to pull from the maelstrom that threatened to tear him apart. But when Sam and Tucker pulled on his arms, yanked his face up and forced sick and wild blue eyes to focus, if only for a moment, Danny snapped back into reality, _his_ reality, and gave a long shuddering sigh that he felt from the top of his skull to the very soles of his feet.

"Are you okay?" Tucker this time, and just as worried as Sam had been when Danny had hit before.

Another voice from the back of Danny's mind whispered to him, and Danny bared his teeth in a smile that was much more a growl than anything else. "Better. Much better." He stood, rotating a shoulder to ease the ache in it and looking around. "Where is he?"

"I'm right here."

Danny turned sharply, shoving Sam and Tucker behind him as silvery white flared at his waist to leave his ghost form behind and he narrowed eyes at Vlad Plasmius. And then startled wide again as he realized that Vlad was actually injured. Green ghost blood trickled from a cut across one cheek bone, his cape was torn halfway down the back, trailing in ragged flutters. One leg bore the telltale scorch marks of a serious burn, or at least a serious fire if there was no burned flesh beneath.

Danny chuckled loudly. "Back for me, old man?" he drawled dangerously.

"Oh no, little badger. You are not he. I don't know where you hid him, but I _will_ have him. Once I'm done with you." A gloved fist raised, pink ectoenergy dancing across it as Vlad leveled it at Danny and let loose, smiling wide enough that his pointed incisors gleamed in the afternoon sun.

And with a look of pure venom Danny blinked green eyes closed and then open, a shield sliding across himself and his friends where they huddled at his back. A green shield, not a blue one, and Danny breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that, though there were flames dancing across his power, it was green, really green, and not the ice blue he had dreaded seeing.

Without a second though Danny stepped through the ghostly flames leaving Tucker and Sam safe beneath it and stalked towards Vlad, who wasn't looking as smug now as he had been before Danny had unleashed his new and improved shield. _And to think,_ a terrible little voice in the back of his mind whispered. _It's the least of what I'm going to do._

"You set me up," he said softly, the words low in his throat and bordering on a growl as fire lit up his fists. "You were going to kill me."

Danny broke off as fire licked its way up his arms to dance across his shoulders and spread up his neck and down his body, his eyes sparking out in brilliant green as he brought a fist back and let fly with a blow to Plasmius' chest that sent him skidding into the ground a dozen feet away. He stalked forward again, consciously letting the dome over his friends flicker and then burn out, knowing without a doubt that they weren't in any danger from Vlad anymore.

In fact, no one was in any danger except Vlad himself. Because death had taught Danny one very valuable lesson: how to be ruthless.

He stooped and tore Vlad's limp body up from the ground, hissing at the half lidded gaze, "You _did_ kill me."

Another blow, this time a half formed ectoblast that sent Vlad flying into the air, arcing and falling less than five feet from Danny. He only stood there and watched as the other halfa struggled to pull himself together, to his feet, summon enough energy, _any_ energy at all, trying to form a shield, or perhaps to disappear in a puff of pink smoke.

"Not this time, Vlad," Danny said softly as the other halfa turned to him with wide red eyes. Danny stretched a hand out to Vlad, letting a wave of energy wash over the older ghost and making him scream as it burned through him, draining what little power he had left away. Plasmius dropped to his knees before Danny, who only stared down in blank pity.

"You killed me," Danny whispered, his head aching as even more memories fought to surge forth as he said it. Dark laughter, fire in his side, falling. Always falling. The thick taste of coppery blood in his mouth, the dust of broken concrete on his lips. Sam lying across his chest, sobbing like her world had ended and begging him to not die, she needed him, she loved him.

The flames roared across Danny as he reached a sure hand out, pressed a finger to Vlad's forehead without a smile, without a frown, with nothing more than the sense of justice running through him. Glowing green fire spread down his arm and finger to eat across Vlad's face, into his hair and own his neck, his chest, his arms. Vlad screamed and flickered back to Masters after a moment as the ghostly fire ate into his skin, his bones, his very soul, seeking and destroying what Danny hated more than anything in the world.

More screaming, writhing, begging as Danny withdrew his finger, his hand, and stepped back toward his friends, silently willing the fire that burst along his own body to die down, dampen, and flicker out as he watched Vlad Masters writhe underneath a different set of flames. They did, he did, until the last faint trace of fire was gone and nothing but Vlad Masters was left behind, bewildered, in pain, and terrified as he realized that he couldn't turn ghost anymore.

"Go," Danny murmured as he turned his back on his once archenemy. "Go, and don't come back. Leave me and mine alone, my friends, my family, my town. Or I _swear_ next time I'll finish what I started today."

He didn't bother to turn back as he heard the painful stumbling of the older man making his escape, only glancing around with dull green eyes to check for witnesses before letting go of his ghost energy and becoming Fenton once again. The pure relief to be able to do so was nearly overwhelming and Danny dragged his hands across his face, the warm flesh, the black hair that caught at his fingers and was left messier than when he had touched it.

The pulse that beat steadily, is a little slow, at his throat.

The deep breathes that filled his lungs.

The purely overwhelming sense of humanity his other self had missed without even knowing it.

He startled back at the gentle hand on his arm before his eyes shot open and he realized that it was only Sam, only Sam, his best friend, the girl he loved more than anything. She was pale, blood flecked her face, _his_ blood, and Danny closed his eyes against the wave of memory that welled at that thought. Sam screaming, against a tree, Skulker, fire, falling—

Her hand slipped down to his, fingers threaded through and squeezed. A lifeline that Danny clung to it, eyes opening again, frightened and blue and wide as he stared at his two best friends.

"He was you?" Sam asked, frightened, tone hesitant and lavender eyes pained.

Danny nodded, unable to say it out loud as his heart clenched. It had been him, could have been him still. But it wasn't. He was still alive. He had a new set of memories, a new understanding of his powers, but he was alive, and he was him. Danny Fenton, the same boy he'd been when he'd woke up that morning. Very nearly.

Because that morning he couldn't remember what it felt like to die.

Danny flinched away from the hand Tucker carefully laid on his uninjured shoulder and then, with a gasp that was more than half sob, reached out to his two best friends, arms around their necks, face buried against two shoulders, and cried for what he had so nearly lost.


	9. Chapter 9

Is There Still

9

"Has he come out yet?" Sam asked Jazz from her perch at the foot of Jazz's bed.

It had been three days since Danny's near death in the park. Three days since Danny had returned from the dead and saved himself. Three days since anyone had actually seen Danny, or heard Danny. Because Danny had locked himself in his room. For three days.

Jazz shook her head miserably. "I wish you would just tell me what's going on. You keep bringing his schoolwork and I keep telling Mom and Dad that he's sick… I know you're lying to me when you say he's alright." Worried turquoise eyes lifted and narrowed at Sam and then Tucker who had hijacked Jazz's computer.

"I can see it on your faces. You're tired, you're scared. You're afraid for him, and you still won't tell me what's going on."

Sam sighed and ran a hand over her eyes. It was true that she, at least, was tired and scared. Tired enough that she had turned to actual makeup to try and cover the dark circles under her eyes. Scared because in the last three days Danny Phantom hadn't even been seen, and the Fenton's were being overworked with minor ghost breakouts.

"We can't tell you, Jazz," she finally said softly, knowing that Tucker would agree with her. "It's his secret, it's his life. When he can, if he can, I think he'll tell you." And admitted silently to herself that temporizing was the only thing she could do; how could she tell Jazz that even she and Tucker weren't exactly sure what had happened?

"I want him to tell me now," Jazz whispered. "I'm scared."

Sam grimaced and glanced over at Tucker who was trying not to look at Jazz. "I'm going to go see if Danny will let me in this time." Tucker snorted, his eyes still on Jazz. "We know he's up. We heard the shower."

She slid off the bed and shut the door behind her smiling smugly when she heard the telltale squeak of bed as Tucker settled next to Jazz. Danny's door was still shut, but she reached a hand out to try the knob anyone, nearly shouting for the other two when it turned in her hand and the door swung in. his room was dark, neater than it had been when she and Tucker had dropped him on his bed three days before.

She saw a scrap of bloodstained shirt hanging out of his hamper against the wall and frowned. He hadn't let anyone see him in three days; she could only hope he'd kept up with bandage changes himself. His desk was clean, computer powered up but the monitor was turned off. His bed was empty and made. In fact, the only evidence that Danny wasn't acting like himself was the fact that his room was cleaner than it normally was.

But it was obvious that he wasn't there, and Sam sighed. He must have gone out flying, perhaps resumed his duties as Amity's ghostly protector. Or, she realized as she glanced out the window and saw a lengthy shadow against the ground, he might just be up on the Op Center. It wouldn't be the first time he'd taken refuge there. Her boots rattled the stairs as she hurried up them and then flung the door to the Op Center's desk open, smiling in relief as she found him.

He was standing at the edge of the deck looking out over the town, jeans riding low at his hips so that she could see the band of his boxers. Shirtless, and Sam's eyes immediately sought the places she and Tucker had helped him bandage. The back of his left arm looked much better, angry red scar tissue in half a dozen places where concrete had pierced. His left side wasn't too far behind she realized with a start as she realized that even the deep gashes he'd had were already healing over.

"How are you feeling?" she asked quietly from where she stood, wondering if he would even speak.

He turned and he was startled to see his normally clear eyes still shadowed, his face looking more haggard and careworn than she had expected. "I think the worst is past," he said, not explaining it, just standing there. He smiled weakly. "I'm still alive."

Sam nodded, her eyes burning as he said it, knowing that there had been a time when he wasn't.

Danny scrubbed a hand over his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose against the headache that holding back the memories gave him. It had taken three days for him to even be able to contemplate being around anything more familiar than his room, the one place he hadn't frequented in that doomed other life. And looking out at his town, his home, his territory… The memory shock was nothing compared to looking at Sam and hearing her cries echoing in the back of his head.

"Thanks for the homework," he said softly as he dropped down from the ledge the railing was anchored to, savoring the feel of warm metal beneath his bare feet. "I actually did it. Sort of." He smiled at her crookedly. "I need you or Tucker to tell me what the hell is going on in English."

Sam laughed. "I suppose I should be relieved that that's all you need help in." She looked up at him when he stopped in front of her. "Are you really okay?"

He shook his head. "No. But I will be."

She lifted a hand and smoothed it across his forehead, smiling as his eyes slipped closed and the furrows between his eyes began to smooth away. "Can you tell us?" she asked softly. He nodded and dropped his head to her shoulder, wrapping strong arms around her and hugging her tightly.

"I can tell you," he said hoarsely against her shirt as he straightened. "I can tell all of you. We should go interrupt them right about now." He shot her an almost wicked smile, the first truly Danny expression she had seen on his face since the day he had killed Vlad Plasmius, and gave a strangled gasp as she found herself suddenly sinking through the ground to land lightly in Jazz's room.

"I hate it when you do that!" she yelled as she punched his shoulder. "Next time warn me!"

Danny only sighed as he absently rubbed his shoulder and plopped down at Jazz's desk, amused at her red face and Tucker's dropped jaw. They were sitting close together, but nothing that would be truly incriminating unless you already knew something. And Danny, who did actually know, could only chuckle, making Sam smile again as she watched him make another tiny shift in his mind back to the Danny Fenton she knew.

"You're feeling better?" Jazz asked, her eyes lighting up. Danny nodded once.

"First things first," he said holding a hand up at the questions he could see building up in her head. He turned to Tucker, "Damage control. I know you said he stayed invisible when he pulled you out of detention, but he wasn't being too careful about not being seen when he went up against Vlad. What's the public reaction?"

"He?" Jazz asked.

"All anyone saw," Tucker said, running right over Jazz's question, "was Danny Phantom fighting Vlad Plasmius over the park. He was joined by another Phantom—he's being rumored as your ghostly cousin or brother. No one's making the resemblance; he was too high up for them to see anything beyond he had black hair and his ectoplasmic signature was blue."

Danny let out a deep sigh. "I know if anyone had known it would've hit the news already… But for some reason I feel a lot better now."

Tucker grinned. "Told you, nothing to worry about."

"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Jazz yelled as she shoved Tucker off the bed and glared at her brother.

Tucker grunted as he hit the floor and stayed there, Sam smiled as she folded herself down next to him. Danny laughed, again, and Sam closed her eyes as he did.

"I can tell you, Jazz," Danny said evenly, casting a glance at Sam and Tucker. "I can tell all of you now. Jazz," he said entreatingly as she turned furious eyes on Sam and Tucker, and he knew that they had been covering for him with her while he learned how to control his new memories and powers. "What do you know?" he asked, turning to Sam and Tucker.

Sam looked down but Tucker met his eyes. "He had a Time Medallion, he was you, he was dead. That's it, Danny." Sam nodded still refusing to meet his eyes.

"Okay," Danny said with a sigh. "So, where should I start?" He tried to smile, and Sam's eyes shot up, hurt and dark violet.

"How can you make a joke out of this? You _died_."

"But I didn't," he corrected gently as she dropped her face to her knees. "Somewhere, somewhen, I did die. But not here, not now. Today," and Danny closed his eyes against the sudden flash of pain as he realized it. "Today I'm being buried there. But I'm not there, I'm here, sitting with you guys. Breathing, heart beating. Alive."

He paused, unsure of how to tell them how he died, or even if he should. But when three sets of fearful, worried eyes met his in return, Danny knew that they deserved the truth, too, as much as he did. Not all of it, he told himself, but enough of it that they would understand. He sat back again, threaded his fingers together and let his head drop back against Jazz's chair.

"There," he began, "I didn't come and save myself. There, Tucker stayed in detention. There…"

It was a long time in telling.

---

"Are you really okay?" Jazz asked quietly after Danny had finished. The sun had set hours before, they'd heard his parents moving through the house, even the faint knocking at Danny's door as their mother had tried checking on him. The worried sigh when she got no answer and found the door locked once again.

Danny shrugged. "I'm doing better. It's not making me run for the toilet every time it happens anymore."

Sam smiled a little. "Can you tell me about the part where Dash cowered like a little girl again?"

Tucker laughed. "I wish you'd taken pictures and brought them with you. Wait," he said with a frown. "They wouldn't have survived outside of time. Dammit."

Danny chuckled. "Well, at least you know it happened." He stopped for a moment, his head aching a bit more. "At least there's a real plus," he said with a faint smile and raised his left arm to show how well healed the slashes from the concrete were.

Sam had already seen, but even now it was surprising to see a week's worth of healing in three days. Jazz and Tucker, however were much more impressed, and Danny made the mental note never to let Jazz have a sample of his ectoplasm for research. He was still shoving her hands away when they heard heaver footsteps on the stairs, and Jazz's door was suddenly swinging in, sending Danny invisible and intangible, falling through the chair as Jazz hit the seat.

"Jazz?" Jack Fenton poked his head through and looked curiously at Sam and Tucker, not expecting to find them with his daughter. "I thought I heard Danny."

Jazz shook her head. "No, he's not in here. Sam and Tucker were just dropping off his homework."

"Oh."

Jazz winced at the painful sigh her father gave, and reached under the chair, giving Danny's now tangible but still invisible leg a painful pinch. She smiled smugly at the faint pained sound. "Don't worry about him, daddy. I saw him this afternoon, and he said he was feeling much better." She smiled brightly. "Danny even aid he'd go to school tomorrow!"

The pained sound wasn't as muffled this time, and Jazz managed to contain her laughter until she'd ushered her father from the room and closed the door behind him securely and Danny phased back up into the chair with an annoyed scowl on his face. "I'm not going to school tomorrow, Jazz."

"And why not, brother mine?" she asked, half curious, half amused.

Danny shifted in the chair, and then stood, heading for the door. "Because I still have questions that need to be answered." Without another word he walked through the door, Sam and Tucker following wordlessly as Jazz only sighed and sat back on her bed, most of the tension seeping out of her as she did.

"Danny?" Sam called as she saw him phase through his own door. She was surprised when it opened and he reached an arm to grab her, then Tucker, and drag them in before shutting and relocking the door. "You're still being weird," she muttered as Danny tugged a drawer open and pulled a shirt out, slipping it on and then following suit with socks and shoes.

He shrugged. "I'm not ready to see them yet," he said quietly. She saw a faint worried look on his face and realized that he wanted to tell his parents the truth. And a heartbeat later she realized what he already knew: that he couldn't. Without a life changing catalyst like Danny's death, or even the way he had been exposed the summer following their freshman year, there was no basis for them to be as accepting.

There was hope, but more uncertainty. And it hurt him.

Silence remained as Danny finished dressing before grabbing Sam and Tucker by the waist and transforming to Phantom, phasing them up through the roof and into the sky. Out of habit he angled himself towards Tucker's house and touched down lightly minutes later, glancing around quickly before shifting back to Fenton and turning to smirk at Tucker.

"What?" Tucker immediately asked, unnerved by Danny's grin.

"Dude. Quit sneaking around with my sister."

There were several moments of silence before the quiet was burst by Sam's laughter, and Tucker's vehement exclamations.

"How'd you know? You never said anything about that!" Tucker said.

Danny laughed. "I told you everything _you_ know. That doesn't mean I told you everything that _I_ know."

"Look, Tuck," Danny said as he grabbed Tucker's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I don't care if you date her. You make her really happy," he informed the other boy, and Tucker flushed happily. Then Danny's eyes narrowed and flared green, sparking and beginning to leak tiny wisps of ghostly fire. "But hurt her, and they will never find the pieces."

"I would never," Tucker said evenly. He shot a glance at Sam who was nearly collapsed in mirth. "I could say the same."

Danny shrugged. "Just as long as we understand each other. I'll see you when I get back."

Danny let Tucker go and grabbed Sam, lifting them up into the air and making it out of earshot before Tucker had the presence of mind to shout, "Wait, where are you going?"

There were no words as Danny took Sam home, phasing through her bedroom window and setting her down on the floor before shifting back to his human self. The urge to touch her was an itch in his fingers, and unbearable ache that was echoed by the pounding in his skull as he remembered what she had felt like, though it had been gloved ghostly hands and not warm, living ones. The memory of her lips on his, the taste, the smell, the touch. It was driving him crazy.

"There are so many things I want to say to you, Sam," he said softly as he closed his eyes, letting a memory come to far into his mind and shuddering at the imagined feather soft touch of her fingers against his cheek.

Blue eyes flashed open suddenly, startled, grateful that it wasn't just a memory. Her hand really was on his cheek, and she was so close. "So say them," she whispered, lip held between teeth as she worried the flesh.

"I-I can't. I don't know how. Not yet." But oh, how he wanted to. But so many questions still left unanswered, and he was expected. That he knew without reason, beyond a shadow of a doubt. "Sam, I… I'll be back. I promise."

She nodded, eyes dark and uncertain. "I'll wait."


	10. Chapter 10

Is There Still

10

"Right on time, Danny," Clockwork said from where he floated by his time portal.

"You knew I would be." Danny's stomach twisted painfully as the words echoed in his head and another set of memories welled up even as he tried to cut them off. He smiled faintly through the nausea. "You know why I'm here."

"We've had this conversation before, have we not?" The ancient time spirit was smiling, and Danny nodded. "You're looking for answers, Danny. Just like we both knew you would."

"It really happened?" The whisper was small and soft and pained in the spaces of silence between the movements of the tower's gears.

"You know it."

Danny closed his eyes, turning away and letting the ghost energy go. He looked at his hands held in front of him as he resolved into human and clenched his fists, then opened them again as he watched, knowing that the last time he had spoken with Clockwork he had been dead. "I… I hoped it wasn't."

"Hope. A powerful motivator," Clockwork said as he floated closer to Danny and laid a cold hand on his shoulder. "Possibly the most powerful; lesser emotions like fear and anger have nothing on it. You have a new future, Danny. you should embrace it with all of your hope."

"It was inevitable?" Another chuckle from Danny as he looked up at Clockwork, a wry grin creasing his face.

"My boy, you have a gift for irony. You already know what happened in that time and place, you have those answers. Perhaps now you'd like to ask the questions that you could not before?" Danny shivered as power washed over as Clockwork shifted into infant and the other ghost pulled his hand away. "And there is your first answer; you will always be more sensitive to the ghostly energies that surround you, and every other ghost that exists."

"Why?" Danny asked. "Why did it have to be like that?"

"Because some things, Daniel," and Danny bit back the annoyance as Clockwork used his given name, making him think of another ghost, another day, another time, "Can only be learned in the most painful and difficult ways possible."

Danny looked up at Clockwork, then sank down to the ground, knees suddenly weak as he understood. He understood what the other him couldn't. "Was it that much worse?" he asked, understanding flickering through blue eyes and leaving them pained.

"Yes," the Time Master said steadily as his form rippled and shifted to ancient and stooped.

"I… I don't understand."

This time Clockwork wasn't amused, or even close, because this time he knew the halfa had no way of understanding. There was no way that he could ever comprehend how losing his humanity and becoming a full ghost on his own could make him so much more terrible than when he had merged with the twisted evil of Vlad Plasmius. Danny Fenton had no true knowledge of the concept of revenge.

Danny Phantom, however, without a human half to contain the ghostly urges, obsessions, had. And it had been terrible to behold.

"What drives Vlad, Danny?" The startled look on the boy's face was entertaining, but the confusion that followed was better. "Obsession, my boy. What is—was—Vlad's obsession?"

Danny shrugged and climbed back to his feet, pacing toward the time portal and watching fascinated as butterflies flitted through it, dancing in the air above several brightly colored flowers. "He's insane. There's no basis."

"Think," Clockwork ordered.

"He wanted my mother. He was obsessed with her, did everything in his power to get her, just like he'd bought every other thing he ever wanted. "Except the Packers," and Danny smirked. "He can't buy them. he can't buy my mother. He can't buy me." There was a full halt to his words as they caught up with his brain and his thoughts made sense, and Danny turned to Clockwork.

"Vlad's obsession is possessing the things he wants, and can't have."

"Very good. Do you understand why I asked you now?" Clockwork waited expectantly, knowing that the boy's logic would follow. He rally needed to use his mind more; it was a terrible shame to waste the gifts he had beyond his ghost powers.

"You want me to figure out what my obsession is." There was uncertainty, and Clockwork nodded, smiling in approval.

The thought of having an obsession frightened Danny. It was something he'd always associated with full ghosts, nothing that he'd have considered having himself. He truly, honestly didn't see himself as an obsessive person. Lazy, maybe. Well, without a doubt. He was male and a teenager; it was a genetic legacy passed down since the dawn of time, a biological imperative that he be a sloth until well beyond puberty.

But obsessed?

He fought ghosts, and yet he didn't like it. There were no perks, no benefits, nothing directly related to himself that made it worthwhile. But beneath the surface thought, there were others. He fought to protect. His home? In a sense, yes. But that didn't explain it all, because he had fought battles when his home, his town, weren't involved.

His friends, his family, then. The people he loved, cared about, relied on. But that still didn't quite fit in Danny's mind as he thought on it, pacing as he did. Yes, there was always the knowledge in the back of his head that he was trying to keep his parents, his sister, his best friends safe. _Sam._ Always, always Sam. But there were times when they would be just as safe without him fighting.

He needed to change his view, Danny realized, thinking back to something he had learned years before from Sam. Ever the artist, she had once tried to teach him to draw. _However you first hold the pencil, change your grip a little so that you focus on how you're holding it._ He needed to step back, change how he saw, focus on how he saw it, and not what he saw.

The picture his memories painted fro him was a disquieting one.

"Jazz is always telling me that I have a hero complex. Sam and Tucker have agreed with her for ages," he said quietly to Clockwork, eyes glued on the portal and the current visage of a forest, beneath moonlight, and snow falling. No part of the world that Danny knew, and he let it soothe his thoughts. "Can a hero complex be called an obsession, Clockwork?"

"Perhaps it would be better to say that you are obsessed with justice." Clockwork smiled at Danny, though he knew it couldn't be seen. "Your humanity instilled a higher sense of morality in you than Vlad's did. But then, he was already well into his fall when your father flipped the switch that day."

Danny turned to Clockwork with an amused smile. "So I'm like Spider Man?"

Clockwork did laugh, even as he had known the comment was coming. "Better to say that for this application of obsession, it had a positive basis grounded in love, trust, and a general sense of positive self image." The laughter let his face and his voice grew grave. "Now take those things away, Danny, and tell me what you have left."

"Nothing," Danny said flatly, his voice hard and hurting.

"Now picture this, knowing what you know, and the things you have just learned." Clockwork stopped for a moment, carefully going over what he was allowed to say, and what he was bound by the strictures of time not to tell. Better that Danny never know that he had driven Samantha to suicide, that his lack of humanity had cost him the affections of his remaining friend and family.

The very nature of a ghost was alien enough to mortals that to have a loved one suddenly reappear as one, no matter how understanding they are, the changes would be too great to accept. And now he had to tell Danny this without telling him exactly what had happened. A difficult task, but he had had time to choose his words.

"Without humanity, there were changes."

Danny nodded. "Tucker was telling me about it then. Sam said I was acting like a poltergeist."

"Do you think that these changes would have stopped? That you could have tried to act human?" Danny shook his head and Clockwork nodded. "And as time passed, and your friends and family had lives of their own, lives that you could not be involved in, and you, Danny, never changing, never aging."

"I lost it, didn't I?" he asked quietly.

"It could be argued that you never had it in the first place, given the mental conditioning you receive at home. But yes," Clockwork said gently, attempting to soften the words with humor. "You tried to stop it, to avoid it. But in the end, without what makes you human, you didn't have the power to stop it."

It still hit Danny like the blow of a sledgehammer, sending him mentally reeling as he remembered all of the things he had done in a different dark future. That had been bad enough on its own, he had killed. Thousands, millions. Almost an entire world. Maimed ghosts, destroyed the Ghost Zone and the human world, and taken out his pain and anger on the unsuspecting populace of Amity Park, wreaking undeniable havoc when he finally had broken through the shield Valerie and her father had designed.

"I need to see it." The words were like mist hanging between Danny and Clockwork, and the sick desperation in them echoed. "I need to see what I did."

"You needn't be so stubborn; the world will not end if you don't see something that no longer will happen." A futile effort, he already knew, but the desire to try and save Danny the pain he was about to put himself through overruled Clockwork's innate knowledge of past, present and future.

"I need to, Clockwork."

"I know."

It was dark in the time portal as Clockwork pointed his time staff at it, and then a twist of it made the portal come to life, only this time it was no Dan Phantom laying waste to the town of Amity Park. In fact, it wasn't the town itself bearing the brunt of the wrath. It was the people themselves, and an absolutely merciless Danny Fenton in black and white hazmat wielding his ghost powers to their fullest extent.

Danny's jaw clenched as he saw himself, or rather the self who had died, standing amidst cowed people, some who he knew, and Danny's stomach twisted to see that it couldn't have been too very far in the future. He could easily recognize the limp form of Dash Baxter, who looked like a bloody red painted statue. Paulina was there, her face in tatters that dripped blood thickly, but alive and screaming.

No Tucker, no family, but more people that he didn't know except from a distance or not at all. Some bleeding, some broken. Most dead, hideous corpses as the Danny-that-was, the Danny-that-could-have-been, walked through them. Calmly, casually, like it was no more than a stroll through Amity's park for him, and Danny closed his eyes against it, imagining that he could smell the thick salty tang of spilt blood, the death and desecration he had inflicted on his home.

And Sam.

Danny's eyes snapped open as he heard her pleading, begging him not to. Whatever it was, he couldn't be sure because his back was still to the portal. But it couldn't be good, he realized, because Sam, his Sam, who was always so strong and brave, was cowering against a wall with her face buried in her hands as she cried. And still she begged making Danny's heart bleed with the anguished pleas.

And then he saw, the Danny-that-was turned and seemed to stare straight into the time portal, and Danny's world dropped away as he saw himself, but not himself. Still black hair, still blue eyes, skin barely tinged with death, if you could see skin underneath the blood that candy coated his face, his neck, his entire body. It was matted into his hair, and Danny fought back the urge to drop to his knees and retch as the Danny-that-was snapped a hand out to where he couldn't see and dragged someone Danny knew, someone he _knew_, into frame.

And then casually snapped Lancer's neck with enough force that his head was nearly ripped from his body, spraying blood, more blood, fresh, dripping and red blood, across his face.

Danny lost the battle when the other Danny flicked a tongue out to lick the crimson liquid as it dripped, sighing in pleasure at the taste. "Enough," he gasped as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, vividly recalling what his own blood had tasted like in his mouth, and gagged once again as the thick coppery flavor flooded up inside his memory.

He could feel the air growing thick around him and his eyes shot open as he realized that it wasn't the air itself, it was the wall of flame that had built up around him as his control slipped, as the horror and helpless rage at himself built inside of him. _No,_ he told himself, eyes blind to everything but green fire. _Not here. Not now. Not in this life._

A scream rent through the fire to him, and he closed his eyes against the pain and anguish of it, knowing it for Sam's voice. _"No more!"_ he screamed, collapsing over his knees, face buried and hands over his ears trying to block the sounds out.

The fire abruptly died as Clockwork watched, knowing that the hard lesson had been learned as clear blue eyes glowed green and Danny stared up at him. "No more," he whispered. "When I die, if I don't move on, kill me, trap me. Just never let that happen. _Please._"

The time master nodded once, short and sharp. The pain, the doubt, they were all he had to keep the power inside Danny in check, and as much as he hated inflicting it upon the young halfa, he knew it was the only way. "It shall be as you ask."

He was cheating. He was manipulating. He was doing it all over again, reassigning the boy's destiny without so much as a second opinion. The doubts that Clockwork felt as he looked past Danny and to the time portal that suddenly glowed brilliantly, silver and gray, and the myriad multitude of possible futures that sent Amity Park, and eventually the world, into a hell worse than anything Dan Phantom could have inflicted, began to fade in the swirling mists.

Clockwork closed his eyes in something akin to relief, as Danny bowed his head again, and Clockwork sighed as he felt himself shift back into his infant state, and then floated lower to Danny, reaching out and forcing the young halfa to look into his eyes. "You are still a child, Danny," he said quietly, gravely. "But you have taken on responsibilities that few men grown could shoulder, much less carry out. You have changed the future, your future, and the future of your world."

"It's still inside me," Danny said dully. "I'm capable of such darkness…"

"Without your humanity, you are capable of many things. But with it, you are capable of many more." Clockwork floated higher as he shifted, pulling Danny to his feet and grasping his shoulder firmly. "When you have doubts, I want you to think on this," and he gestured to the portal once more, and Danny blinked at it before realizing what he was seeing.

Himself. Just himself, surrounded by people, some that he knew, most that he didn't, and the thought of _yet_ swept through his mind. A familiar figure carrying a cake, candles on top of that lit the darkening room and a laughing Danny blowing them out. Sam, Tucker, Jazz. Dani? Danny's eyes widened as he recognized her, older, much older, nearly as old as himself. The candles flickered as he blew them out, and the Danny in the portal smiled as his sister reached out and ruffled silvery hair.

It faded after that, and Danny looked at Clockwork. "That's my future? Safe? They're safe?"

"Better to say that it is the most likely future." He smiled as his form shifted again, and he hefted the time staff in his hand as he pointed it behind Danny at empty space. "Let's just say that if that future ever wavers, you will know, because I will be there."

Danny smiled, faintly, but still smiled as a swirling green portal formed behind him. "A shortcut, Danny. travel safely, and don't hesitate to come back if you feel the need."

"Thank you, Clockwork," Danny said. He stepped through the portal and it shrank until it was gone as Clockwork watched Danny in his time portal, smiling.

"His choice, as ever, was always his own," he said firmly into the emptiness, and shot an annoyed glance behind him as two expected figures appeared. "I trust you know where the door is."

A dismissal if ever he'd heard one.


	11. Chapter 11

Is There Still

11

The sun had already been up for hours when Danny slipped through the portal Clockwork had created for him, and he winced as he rubbed a hand across his face, knowing that some time had passed if his level of fatigue were anything to go by. At least the night, he was hoping not more, and rolled his neck and his shoulders as he glanced at his door to make sure it was still securely locked before flicking his mouse to the side to wake his monitor up.

_10:18_ of the morning after he'd left.

Danny yawned and scrubbed a hand through his hair wondering if Jazz would kill him for just going to sleep until he woke up again. She'd covered for him for three days, and he'd forced her into some kind of excuse this morning. He wasn't looking forward to apologizing to her, but then, he didn't really have to. He smiled wickedly. She'd backed herself into this corner herself.

But he should go to school. His eyes flickered to the left of his monitor and to the framed photo of himself and his two best friends next to it, a gift from Jazz at his birthday. A memorable occasion, the three huddled close together and smiling, and Sam with her arms wrapped around Danny. Yes, he should go to school, if only to talk to Sam.

It was time he told her; if he kept putting it off something might happen. And that would be unacceptable.

Danny tossed one last longing glance towards his bed before toeing his shoes off and throwing his shirt towards his hamper. He grabbed up his towel where it was tossed over his desk chair and headed for the bathroom, intent on nothing more the hot water, clean soap, and a well pasted toothbrush. Forty minutes later he was clean, mostly dry and scrubbing at his hair with a towel before trying to get it under control. Or as much control over it that he ever had, without resorting to dangerous amounts of styling products.

A clean pair of jeans, a white t-shirt and a red button up later, Danny was shouldering his book bag and tapping on Jazz's door, smiling as she opened it. "I'm going to school. I got my answers, you can quit worrying." She gave him a perplexed look that only intensified when he wrapped her in a tight hug, then headed down the stairs two at a time before jumping the last three.

In the kitchen his mother and father, not where he had expected them, but where he had to pass through to get to the lab. "Mom? Dad?"

"Danny!" Maddie exclaimed. "You're feeling better? Jazz said you thought you were getting sick again last night. She heard you in the bathroom."

Danny smiled and shook his head. "I think I'm alright. I was going to go to school; I've missed enough," and he closed his eyes against the double entendre that sent memories flickering behind his eyes before leaning forward and hugging his mother, much like he had done in that other life. Moments later he felt the tight squeeze of his father, and for just a moment he thought that maybe, just maybe he could tell them and everything would be okay.

He pulled back and smiled down at his mother, up at his father. "I missed you guys, a lot. We should do something tonight. Bowling, a movie."

With another smiled Danny was waving at his parents as he escaped through his front door, and made the mental promise to make one last visit to Clockwork before he told his parents. It would surely wouldn't hurt to just double check that he wasn't going to end up as a science experiment or on the receiving end of a deadly ectoblast. But for some reason, he thought that maybe, just maybe, it would work out.

Someone owed him, someone would make it right.

A quick glance around and a sudden flash of light later, Danny Phantom was soaring high over Amity Park towards Casper High, flying invisibly as he arrowed down, almost surprised that students were already milling around outside with trays and bagged lunches. Almost, but not quite. He had taken an awful long time underneath the scalding water. But it had helped. To an extent he felt like maybe he was a little more clean than he had been since watching the future he had nearly been condemned to.

He landed lightly behind a tree and shifted back to Fenton while remaining invisible, double checking that no one was watching before letting the tingle along his skin fade and allowing the world to see him once again as he stepped around the tree, icy blue eyes scanning the courtyard for his two best friends as he walked towards the massed students. Familiar faces again; Dash, Paulina, a freshman who looked eerily familiar as Danny realized where he had seen his face before.

In Clockwork's domain.

_A future friend,_ he thought to himself with a smile as his eyes lit on more than familiar faces, Sam and Tucker, sitting at a table underneath a tree with two boys and a girl from one of Sam's protests. Sara, Michael, and Scott, if Danny recalled. He promised himself that he would recall from now on as he strode surely to the table, a smile lighting his face. He couldn't forget, shouldn't forget. Not even friends, because what the hell was he protecting the town for if it weren't for the ties that bound people together?

"Danny!" Sam called with a delighted smiled as she saw him coming, and Tucker turned jade green eyes on him with a relieved wave.

"Hey," he said almost breathlessly as he looked at Sam, remembering the feel of her, the taste, the touch, the sound.

"Didn't think you'd be in school today," Tucker was saying as Danny dropped his bag and slid down next to Sam.

Sam smiled at him again, this one worried and curious. "I didn't actually expect to see you for a while, myself," she added softly. "Did you?" The question went unfinished in company, but Danny knew what she was asking for and smiled.

He nodded. "I did." Danny snaked a hand out to Sam's and held on, staring straight into her eyes. "Can I talk to you? Please?" Without waiting for a yes or no Danny shot an apologetic smile at the rest of the table and stood, pulling Sam along with him a respectable distance away from the other students, but not caring if they were out of sight so long as no one could hear them.

"Danny, is everything okay?" Sam asked worriedly as he slowed and stopped, never letting her hand go.

"Better than," he said with a smile.

Sam frowned. "Okay, then why did you drag me off like a caveman? We were actually having a conversation and it was really ru—"

It was a billion times better than he had remembered it, despite the surprised way her eyes widened as he leaned down and kissed her firmly, hands sliding to her slender waist and pulling her against him. The memory had nothing on the real thing, warm lips against warm lips, bare fingers instead of gloved hands touching the smooth skin of her waist. The way her hands squeezed his arms for a moment before sliding up to his shoulders, not to push away but to pull closer.

He pulled back for a moment, holding her face in his hand, reveling in the feel, the _feel_, of silky black hair against his fingers just like he'd wanted in that aborted timeline. It was better than heaven. "Sam," he whispered hoarsely. "I am so sorry."

Lavender eyes stared up at him, lazily closing for a moment before she pursed her lips and looked again. "What are you sorry for Danny?" she asked when she found her voice again, swearing silently that if he was sorry for kissing her she was going to kill him. Again.

Danny ran a finger down her cheek, watching as her eyes drifted closed and her body shivered at his touch. "I'm sorry that I was such a fool," he started, almost smiling at the way her eyes shot open in surprise, like she'd been expecting for him to tell her he regretted kissing her. "I'm sorry that I hurt you, I'm sorry I was a coward."

"Danny, you're the bravest person that I know," she said softly, and he laid a finger over her lips to silence her.

"No. No I'm not," he said firmly. "I'm a coward. And I am so sorry that I had to die to figure it out, to admit it."

"What?" she asked, confused. "That you like me?" The hope there in her voice made him smile widely, knowing exactly what was going through her head, the Sam Manson that hadn't watched him die, that hadn't had her world pulled down from the inside out.

The Sam Manson who was stronger than him, and could hide how much she loved him, even when he had her quite firmly in his arms and had just kissed her thoroughly.

"No, Sam," he said with a smile, knowing that his next words would take the hurt in her eyes away. "That I love you."

And then he kissed her again, effectively taking the startled and frightened look from her eyes, wrapping himself around her and not caring about anything else in the world but the fact that he was holding the girl he loved more than anything in his arms.

---

"Twenty that says he doesn't tell her," Scott said with a smile as he fished the bill from his pocket. "She's going to pine after him until senior year, at least."

Michael shrugged, flipping auburn hair out of his eyes as he stared after Danny who was currently dragging Sam off. "I don't know, Scott. He was acting impressively lovesick."

"And you're what, fourteen? What do you know about love?"

Michael smirked. "Enough to know that this would be easy money if I gambled."

"I got twenty," Tucker popped in, eyes glued to his best friends, and the way that Danny's hand was still clutching Sam's desperately. "He's going to tell her."

"Double!" Scott exclaimed as Sam started scowling at Danny, one hand angrily pointing back at the table he had dragged her from so unceremoniously. And then Danny kissed Sam.

"Wow. Never thought I'd see the day he did it," Michael said, his brow raised and his mouth hanging.

Tucker only smiled as he held is hand out for the wad of cash Scott was passing him. "Let's just say that Danny got a wakeup call. A really loud and painful wakeup call."

"I'd say it worked."

---

"You went to see Clockwork, didn't you?" Sam asked as she leaned lazily against Danny. They were in the park, on a hill underneath a tree that gave them a perfect view of the place Danny had died, once upon a different life.

Danny only nodded, staring down at the fountain that was still in rubble as the funding was built up to replace it. It wouldn't be too much longer, he knew. He'd had his fingers in that particular grapevine, wanting to know how long until the most vivid reminder of that fated day. It had been a week and a day since it had happened; Danny was ready for full explanations. If no one else, Sam and Tucker both needed to know exactly what his future could hold.

"Danny?" Sam asked softly.

"Not yes, Sam. Wait for Tucker, so I don't have to go through this twice."

For a moment Danny thought that she was going to press the issue, demand answers that he knew he would give her if she only asked. But she didn't, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he pressed a thankful kiss to her temple. He was even more grateful that he could do that, grateful enough that he completely ignored Tucker when he finally dropped down next to them rolling his eyes.

"I know this really great hotel if you guys need one…" he started, and winced at the annoyed glare lavender eyes inflicted on him.

Danny only laughed, saying, "What makes you think we haven't already been there?" And ducked as Sam hit him. "Okay, okay. Can't I pull his strings?"

"No," she said shortly.

"Had to try," Danny said with a smile before the humor slipped away, his uncertainty finally showing through. "I want you guys to know everything. I trust you, you know?"

Sam smiled at him and Tucker nodded.

"We'll always be here for you Danny," Tucker said evenly as Sam held his hand tightly in her own.

"Nothing you tell us is going to scare us off," she added.

Danny smiled, real and true remembering the last thing he'd seen in Clockwork's time portal. "I know guy," he said. "I know. And for that, I am so thankful."


End file.
